Dual Process Theories of Reasoning and Judgment Research Paper

Dual Process Theories of Reasoning and Judgment - Research Paper Example For example, Pavlov's model of classical conditioning is commonly recognized as a form of associative learning where a neutral stimulus is introduced along with a stimulus of significance and an unconditioned response is transferred for a conditioned one. Within a vacuum this model works, but Cognitive-Experiential Self-Theory suggest that through one's experiences they form memories through which they associate emotions and when similar events occur that remind them of these memories, they in turn associate that even with the felt emotion. These emotions in turn effect behavior making this so significant to the daily lives of individuals. Human beings naturally use their emotions in relations to their memories to defines a sense of self. Cognitive-Experiential Self Theory denotes that the analytical and the emotional can work in contrast while simultaneously working in correspondence with the cognitive mind. A major disconfirmation of this theory can be seen in the human pursuit of self realization as Keirkegaard notes. If as Cognitive-Experiential Theory argue Human beings cognitively are reactionary to their on predicated emotions than there is no room to learn from one's emotions and in turn overcome them. Keirkegaard believed this individualistic existence caused everyone to travel along a path toward self-realization and this process, he noted, had three stages.

Analyse the financial performance & position of Intercontinental Hotel Essay

Analyse the financial performance & position of Intercontinental Hotel Group plc and explain and evaluate the treatment intangib - Essay Example Background Information Intercontinental Hotel Group Plc. owns one of the leading brand and chain of hotels and resorts across continents. The group’s registered corporate office is located in Denham, United Kingdom and the group has a history of almost 60 years of delivering the highest level of quality of customer service which has permitted the group to achieve phenomenal growth over the last few decades. The group operates not only by owing hotels and resorts completely and also by entering into franchise agreements with other companies to operate hotels and resources The group has more than 4,500 hotels which are operating in different countries. The group operates hotels brands including Crown Plaza Hotel, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, Candlewood Suites and others. These brands are arranged in a way that they reflect both luxury and budget hoteling facilities for guests. The group offers a hotel loyalty program through which it has achieved 63 million members wh o received updates and discounts on bookings and other privileges (Yahoo Finance, 2012). Financial Ratios Analysis For the purpose of analyzing Group’s financial performance in the last two years, following ratios have been determined and a discussion for them is presented while considering additional supporting information available in the Group’s annual report. It is pertinent to mention here that there are material exceptional items in the financial statements of IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group, 2011). These exceptional items are not considered for the purpose of calculating ratios. However, the impact of these exceptional items has been evaluated at the end of financial analysis. Profitability of IHG Keeping in view the profitability ratios as calculated below for the Group, it is noted that the Group has improved its performance in terms of returns. Apart from the continuing effects of recent global financial distress, the Group has managed to report growth in its profits. As evidenced by the gross and operating margins presented below, the Group has been able to report considerable growth in its gross and operating profits. One of the main reasons for this growth has been increase in total revenues of the Group. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning here that IHG’s cost of sales declined in 2011 whereas revenues climbed up, thus signifying the level of operational efficiency reached by the Group. Following this improvement in cost of sales figure in 2011 and gross profits, the trend translated into operating profits also, due to which the Group has been able to report higher operating margin for the year ended 2011 (Peterson & Fabozzi, 2012; Warren et al., 2011; InterContinental Hotels Group, 2011). Profitability Ratios Ratio 2011 2010 Return on Capital Employed 17.35 % 12.29 % Return on Equity 67.93 % 97.59 % Operating Profit Margin 21.32 % 17.44 % Gross Profit Margin 56.39 % 53.75 % Source: (InterContinental Hotels Group, 20 11) In addition to this, the returns on capital employed and on total equity of the Group have also shown favorable changes. With the increase in profits attributable to shareholders of the Group, the return on equity and capital employed also increased, and this increase in net profits for the Group has been such that it overcame the impact of increase in capital employed

Back To School Night Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Back To School Night - Essay Example followed by a question-answer session. This will give the parents a good understanding of the academic year ahead of the child and the role they have to play to make it a success. â€Å"Unfortunately both the quality and quantity of parental contacts with the school decline as children get older†, say Puma & others (Puma et al., Strong families, strong schools, US DOE, 1994) and point to the sharply contrasting statistics for the first graders and the seventh graders. They go on to add that involved parents help students to perform better academically, stay longer in school, and have better social skills. Teachman et al., also reinforce this view pointing out that, â€Å"†¦parent-child and parent-school interaction†¦Ã¢â‚¬  is related to dropping out of high school. (Teachman et al., Social Capital and the Generation of Human Capital, Social Forces, 1997) A child who routinely expects its parents to visit the school at least during the Back to School Nights, gets used to parents Back to school night is held within the first few days of the school re-opening and is followed by more such meets – each after the successive term examinations are held and the results announced. The second, third and the fourth meetings are indeed open house meetings to take stock of the progress of the child in the school along with discussing and implementing ways to improve performance. Back to school night is an event of the evening and night. This is a time of joy and relaxation coupled with establishing or renewing relationships between the parents and the teachers. The subsequent meetings are for more serious efforts involving in-depth discussions for which sufficient time is to be earmarked to cover all aspects of a child’s progress and for all children. Thus, they are best held commencing from the morning and continued till all the

1984 by George Orwell Essay Example for Free

1984 by George Orwell Essay The theme of power is prominent in the dystopian novel 1984 by George Orwell and throughout this book he develops two different types of power. This is collective power and individual power, which will both be addressed separately. Firstly, the notion of power through the collective is characterised through the totalitarian Party in Airstrip One, Oceania, one of the three super-states. In chapter 3 Part 3, Winston claims that, â€Å"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake†, and that power comes from the oppression of sensual experience and basic human instincts and through the manipulation of history. In regards to the oppression of sensual experience and basic human instincts, the novel opens with a characterisation of Winston’s apartment block. It are described as smelling of â€Å"boiled cabbages and old rugs†. Through olfactory imagery, the reader is able to understand the conditions of the Outer Party member’s life as being dank and foetid, coupled with the ironic naming of the apartments as ‘victory mansion’ seems to suggest that whilst there is that pretense of both nationalism and grandeur, the reality is different. This says two things, ? rstly it shows a denial of the living conditions by the Party and secondly it expresses the societal division between the Outer Party and the Inner Party when contrasted with the vibrant living quarters of OBriens home in chapter 8 part 3. In this chapter, the visual imagry is overwhelming for both Winston and Julia through the use of synesthesia and accumulation. The effect of such a comparison epitomises the division between the two classes whereas the Inner Party, and the collective institute that makes up the Party has access to richer sensual perception in olfactory, kinesetic and gustatory senses and they can control the senses of the lesser classes. This oppression of basis human senses deprives the human body to which the Party utilises in keeping the people in a constant state of angst, which unables them to be easily manipulated into believing the Party ideology and accepting the stardard of living that is applied to the people. This is also seen with the example of the prole. The proles are just given enough to get by and due to this they do not need to become revoltuionary or question authority. In regards to the manipulation of history, the denial of past events and the establishment of falsities is a way in which the Party has control over the people. The changing of history is ? rst established in the in the ? rst chapter where Winstons work at the Ministry of Truth is discussed. Those that control the present control the past. Those that control the past control the future. This is due to two reasons. Firstly, with the control of the past, the society in the novel is without a ? rm grasp in reality and experiences are nulli? ed in the their own version of reality. Secondly, everyones experiences are institutionalised under the conformity of the past controlling independent thought and indiviuality. Winston tries to break loose from these con? nes and in his very ? rst diary entry he simply writes the date. The effect of writing his thoughts down provides an impetus for further counter-party ideology which is articulated further in the book. This brings me on to the second type of power that is addressed in George Orwells ovel. That is the power of the individual and throughout the book it is characterised through the characters of both Winston and Julia through both crimethink and rediscovering what it means to be human. One of the ? rst instances of Winstons individual power comes through the writing in his diary. Much of his writing in the ? rst chapter of part one holds little structure and contains little use of grammar devices. The effect of such writing is the demonstration of out foriegn it is for Winston in his paradigm to express his personal feelings even if, at this early stage in the novel, all his commentary have a political stance. The capitalisation of down with big brother   adds to the effect of Winstons individual power as it is a radical step away the acceptence of total party power. Julia may well be the symbol for hope that Orwell inserts into the novel to allude to the continuing resistence to totalitarianism inherent in humanity. Julia is perhaps the greatest hope for change, as her relationship with Winston is representitive of the need for the worker to form an alliance with the middle class. Julia can be seen as the ? rst person to being to change Winstons individual power through their relationship spawning in part 2. During the relationship, the reader can note an increase in sensual imagery such as the gustatory imagry of the jams and sugar, the auditory imagery of the singing from the proles and the bird in the woods, and the olfactory imagery of the roasted coffee. The effect of the introduction of this imagery creates a mood of comfort and relaxation, which appeals to the reader and their experiences. This gaining of the basic human insticts and experiences can be seen in colloralation with the Partys want to remove these instinct highlighting the importance that senseual perception plays in percieved or real power one has.

Driving Under the Influence Essay Example for Free

Driving Under the Influence Essay 1. A. A trip to the ocean can be a relaxing escape from the everyday pressures of life. B. You should always be careful to avoid overexposure to the sun at the beach. 2. Check for correct punctuation, including capitalization. Learn to spell the words you use. Learn the spelling rules and the exceptions to those rules. Keep a list of words you’ve misspelled and looked up. Use your list as a reference when you write, edit, and proofread your work. Watch for grammatical errors. Keep an alert eye out for errors such as fragments, run-ons, faulty agreement, and incorrect comparisons. 3. A sentence or phrase usually used expressing a popular or common thought or idea, which has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse. Opposites attract: This means that people who like different things and have different views are likely to fall in love or to become friends. 4. Brainstorming: Where you right down what you think might be a focus for your paragraph in which some will end up not being used. Webbing: A web in which it shows a relationship between some of the ideas you have. 5. C. How to make my favorite sandwich: First, lay out the bread on the preparing surface. Second, take out the sliced meat, making sure to get as much of the liquid off as possible. Third, put the meat on the sandwich until the desired thickness is reached. You can also add cheese at the point, if you want it to be soft and melted. Fourth, put the sandwich in the microwave for 40 seconds, flipping it once every 10 seconds. Fifth, let cool and enjoy. 6. The best way to stop drunk driving is to enforce stiffer penalties for anyone caught drinking and driving. The fines need to be much higher and their license should be much harder to get back. It should be made that a zero tolerance breathalyzers machine should be mandatory in every new vehicle that you buy. Make it so that the car just wont start even if you have a drink or two. There should also be designated drivers in every town and city all over the world. A designated driver is simply a person who agrees not to drink alcohol and be responsible for driving others home. The clubs should also have it in place so you cant leave and drink and drive. Then just maybe if we get this all in place, maybe we can save a lot lives each year and keep the drunk drivers off the highways.

Evaluating Agency Theorys Strengths and Weaknesses

Evaluating Agency Theorys Strengths and Weaknesses Agency theory refers to contract whereby principal engage with agent to perform some act on their behalf. The act involved giving power to agent for some decision making. Everyone work on the feet of benefit that can be gained for oneself. Thats why it is strongly agreeable that agent, as a utility maximizer will not act at the best interest of principal. Therefore, agents may cheat if they were not monitored by principal and principal, on the other hand, must bear agency cost to avoid suffering loss. These agency costs includes monitoring costs of agent, bonding costs whereby agent will try to show that they are not self-serving, and residual losses that are too costly to monitor. In general, agency cost is one of a type of internal cost incurred from, or must be paid to, an agent acting on behalf of a principal. Agency costs mainly originated from the separation of control, divergence of ownership and control and the different objectives (rather than shareholder maximization) of the managers. For example, difference of interest between shareholders and management. Shareholders hope that management could operate the company in a manner that increases shareholder value. But management may wish to run the company in ways that can maximize their personal authority  and well-being  that may not be in favor of the shareholders. From the paper, Jensen and Mecklings (1976), they used zero agency-cost firms whereby the manager is the firm sole shareholder as a reference point of comparison for all other cases of ownership and management structures. At one utmost of ownership and management structures are firms whose managers possess 100 percent of the firm. These firms, by their definition, have no agency costs. At the other utmost are firms whose managers are employees with no equity in the firm. In between are firms where the managers possess some, but not all, of their firms equity. They stated that agency costs are higher among firms that are not 100 percent owned by their managers and these costs increase as the equity share of the owner-manager declines. In other words, agency costs increases with a reduction in managerial ownership. In situation (where the managers own some, but not all, of their firms equity) whereby monitoring cost were included by equity holder to alter the opportunity the owner-manager has for possessing non-monetary benefits can decrease the owner-managers consumption of perquisites. Examples of monitoring cost include auditing and budget restrictions. However, owner-managers will still willingly enter into the contract as it will increase the firms value. The particular increase in the value of the firm that accrues will be reflected in the owners wealth, but his welfare will be increased by less than this because he forgoes some non-monetary benefits he previously enjoyed. In situation (where the managers own some, but not all, of their firms equity) whereby owner-manager expands resources to guarantee to equity holder that he would limit his activities, bonding cost incurred. Examples of bonding cost include contractual limitation on managers decision making power and auditing of financial account by public accountant. If the bonding costs were all under owner-managers control, he will gain the benefit as such of monitoring costs gives. In a nutshell, the manager finds it in his interest to incur these costs as long as the net increments in his wealth which they generate (by reducing the agency costs and therefore increasing the value of the firm) are more valuable than the perquisites given up. Although by incurring the monitoring and bonding cost increases the efficiency of firm, it does not maximize the firms value. This is because, the cost of separation of ownership and control occurred as a result of differences between efficient solution of zero monitoring and bonding cost and value of firm when there is positive monitoring cost. And Jensen and Mecklings (1976) showed that agency cost will be positive as long as monitoring costs are positive. Size and existence of agency cost depends greatly on the nature of monitoring costs, the needs of managers for non-monetary benefits and supply of potential managers who are able to finance the firm with personal wealth. Agency cost of debt indicates that there will be a rise in cost of debt when there is difference in the point of views of bondholders and management. There are a few fractions of agency costs of debts. The first one is the incentive effects related with debts. An owner-manager will intend to involve in investments with high risk and high profits with the financial structure of debt-typed claims because the loss will bear by debt-holder. For example where there are two investment options, A and B. The option B will help owner-manager to gain more equity, while the option A will give back more profit to bondholder. The choice of investment will only been done after the bonds are sold. Bondholders buy bonds from the company and suppose the company to invest in option A. However, due to the incentive effect, the manager did not invest as they expected but invest in option B which will help them gain more in equity. This will cause welfare loss to the bondholders. However, this decision c ould be realized by bondholders. If the bondholders knew the choice of the manager, they will only willing to buy the bonds at a lower price. Due to this action, the overall firm value may decrease. This reduction of firm value will be the residual loss which is also known as agency cost. This amount of agency cost is liable to owner-manager. Monitoring and bonding costs are another fraction of agency costs. In order to preserve the benefits of their own, bondholder will restrict the managements decisions. They will set contracts in details to monitor the owner-managers behavior. The contracts may influence the capacity of the management to make the best decision and decrease the profit of the firm. The decrease of the profit, the cost of enforcing the contracts and all the other costs related with the contracts are the monitoring costs. As the monitoring costs are borne by owner-manager, he will hope to minimize the monitoring cost, and therefore he will incur bonding costs. The bonding costs are incurred to give assurance to the bondholder that he will not turn aside from his promised behavior. He will only voluntarily bond himself in contract when such deed benefits him. Bankruptcy and reorganization costs are also one of the components of the agency costs of debts. Bankruptcy occurs when the firm unable to pay debt obligation. The cost of bankruptcy is always the interest of the potential buyers of fixed claims. This is because this cost will decrease their payoffs if the bankruptcy happens. If the probability of the bankruptcy cost is high, the willingness of the price buyer to pay for fixed claims will be low. The value lost because of the cost of bankruptcy will be the agency costs. The probability of bankruptcy will negatively affect the operating costs and the incomes of the firm. A firm may need to pay higher salaries in order to keep engaged the employees in the firm when the probability of the firm gone high. Besides, the firms that provide after sales services will also face decrease of sales volume. There are some factors that encourage the firms to use corporate debts although the factors discussed above will discourage them. Tax subsidy on interest payments is one of the factors. There are some theories verified that the use of risky debt will increase the value of the firm because of the tax subsidy on the interest payments. The firm will enjoy the benefits if in the end the benefit of tax subsidy covered the agency costs that incurred from debt. Furthermore, the firm will also be motivated to use corporate debt when there is a profitable investment while the firm has insufficient fund to invest. The firm will incur them provided that the profits generated from investment are greater than the marginal agency costs of debts. There is some critical variables to be concerned besides the amount of debt and equity for a given size firm, such as inside equity (Si) held by the manager, ouside equity (So) and debt (B) held by anyone ouside of the firm. Therefore, the term of ownership structure is applied rather than capital structure. Besides that, we have to identify that the cost to be inccured is related to the use of debt or outside equity in a firm. A firm which is facing capital limitation can finance the full capital value of its present and future projects if there are other individuals in the economy who have large enough amount of personal capital to finance the firm. Besides that, a firm can prevent property lossess related to the agency costs due to the sale of debt or outside equity. If not, the firm needs to acquire the excess capital in the debt market with the absence of such individuals. As a result, the owner-manager is the individual who bears the agency costs since the project is unprofitable enough to cover existing costs included agency costs. So, it is important for owner-manager who bears these costs to reduce the agency costs in order to increase his property. If the capital markets, such as the value of assets where the debt and outside equity is eficient enough to indicate the agency costs estimation with unbiased, these agency costs will bear by the selling owner-manager. So, the task of owner-manager who will take the risk to bear the cost of agency is to determine the perfect ratio of ouside equity to debt, So/B. Therefore, from the owner-managers point of view, the optimal ratio of outside funds to be acquire from equity to debt for a given level of internal equity is that E which results in minimum total agency costs, E*= So* /(B â‚ ¬Ã‚ «Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  So ) The total market value of the equity is S = Si+So, The total market value of the firm is V = S+B. 0 E*= (So/ B + So) At(E= ASo(E) + AB(E) AB(E) ASo(E) At(E*) Figure 1 We assume that the size of the firm is remain constant and the actual value of the firm V, will rely on the agency costs incurred. Figure 1 indicate the agency costs is divided into two separate components, ASo(E) represents the total agency costs of outside equity holders by the owner-manager and AB(E) represents the total agency costs of debt incurred in the ownership structure. A Ã‚ ´(E) = ASo(E) + AB(E) is the total agency cost. The optimal proportion of outside financing shown as E* where total agency costs is minimum, AT(E*). When E ºÃ¢â€š ¬Ã‚  So/(B+So) is zero, there is no outside equity, the managers intention to use the outside equity is zero. As E increases, his incentives to exploit the outside equity is increase and hence the agency costs ASo(E) increase. When the outside equity So = E = 0, there are a maximum of outside funds are acquire from debt. As the amount of debt decreases to zero, these costs, AB(E) decrease because his intention to rearrange wealth from the bondholders to himself falls. It is because the total amount of debt reduce, and therefore it is more easier to rearrange any amount given to the debtholders. Besides that, his reallocation shares which is accomplished is falling since So is rising and therefore inside equity, Si/(So+Si), his share of the total equity is falling. At(E* Ko) E*(Ko) At(E* K1) E*(K1) AB(E K0) ASo(E K0) AB(E K1) AS0(E K1) K1) High outside financing Low outside financing Figure 2. Agency cost functions and optimal ouside equity as a fraction of total outside financing, E*(K), for two different levels of outside financing. In order to identify the consequences of rising the amount of outside financing, and therefore decrease the amount of equity held by the manager,Si, the value of the firm, V* remain constant. The net consequence of the greater used of outside financing given the cost functions in figure 2 is to increase the total agency costs from A Ã‚ ´(E*;Ko) to A Ã‚ ´(E*;K1), and to increase the optimal portion of outside funds acquired from the sale of outside equity. Therefore, the larger the firm may incurred higher total agency costs due to the monitoring function is internally more difficult and expensive in a larger organization. At(K V*1) At(k V*o) At(E K V*) Total agency costs 0 Fraction of firm financed by outside claims KFig. 3. Total agency costs as a function of the fraction of the firm financed by outside claims for two firm sizes, V*1>V*o. Of course, there are certain risks when the owner-manager demanded for outside financing. If the owner-manager is alway relies on outside funding, he will have his entire treasure invested in the firm. Therefore, he would not optional to outside funding until he had invested 100 percent of his personal wealth in the firm. Since, the manager who invests all of his wealth in a firm, he will bear a welfare loss. However, he can prevent the agency costs when he increasing relies on outside funding by taking certain actions. If the returns from assets are not totally correlated with the project, an individual can decrease the riskiness of the returns on his part by dividing his treasure into different assets by diversifying. Of course, he will be contributed to become a minority stockholder in order to avoid this risk by suffer a wealth loss as he reduces his proportion ownership because prospective shareholders and bondholders will take into account the agency costs. The analysis of this paper is only related with a single investment-financing decision and has excluded the issues of incentives which influencing future financing-investment decisions. However, some changes have been made to conclude that the costs and benefits will be changed by the expectation of future sales of outside equity and debt which may benefit to the manager himself. If he brings out a high probability of chance for dealing business, he probably can gain a big amount of future capital from outside sources and it will help to increase the business benefit and reduce the size of the agency costs. But, finite life of individual cannot eliminate the agency cost because it needs to consider more on his successors who think of own benefit and interest. Normally, they assumed that all outside equity are no right to vote. The manager will suffer the decreasing of his partial ownership in the long-run welfare and limit his action to control over the corporation and even fire the manager if they have right to vote. Besides, if the costs of decreasing the dispersion of ownership are lesser than the benefits to be acquired from decreasing the agency costs, it will pay some individual to purchase the shares in the market to decrease the dispersion of ownership. Moreover, they proposed an alternative way for the owner-manager who carried both equity and debt outstanding to get rid of the agency costs of debt. It will be no incentive if he is bound contractually to have a portion of the total debt equal to his partial ownership of the total equity. If the manager is getting balance between the debt and equity holders, the net effect will be zero. But, the limitation is they have not conduct to the large corporation and just perform in the small company which cause them couldnt have a clear picture on formal contract of reducing agency cost. Theory of Monitoring is a major part of the analysis which they expected monitoring activities help to develop particular characteristics to those institutions and individuals will be given a lot of advantages through these activities. The analysis demonstrates that the degree of security analysis activities will lower the agency costs related with the division of ownership and control, and they are socially productive absolutely. Furthermore, they supported that there are a lot of advantages of the security analysis activity to be played in the bigger capital value of the ownership claims to firms which is not in the day to day portfolio returns if this analysis is correct. If the firm can make the private returns to analysis same with the private costs of such activity, the security analysis will be balanced. However, the analysis will not reveal the social product of this activity which will include high level output and capital value of ownership claims. Therefore, the argument s uggests that, it will be overwhelming when the shareholders pay straightforwardly to have the perfect monitoring conducted if there is imperfect of security analysis being conducted. The problems discovered in the study included Pareto inefficient which is the obtainable set of financial claims on outcomes in a market fails to extent the fundamental step. An inadequacy conclusion is generally come out without clear attention to the costs of discovering latest claims or costs of maintaining the expanded set of markets which refer to the welfare improvement. But, the problem is the difficulty of formulation a positive analysis of the maximum level of individual behaviors in the economy that may influence them to generate and sell contingent claims. So, self-interested maximizing behavior of individuals becomes the first step in the way of implementing a study of the supply of markets issue. They suppose that planning the question of the perfect markets in terms of the combine both the demand and supply conditions will be very productive instead of implicitly assuming that latest claims from independent human effort.

Marlow Vs. Willard Essay -- essays research papers

Marlow vs. Willard Charles Marlow and Captain Willard have many characteristics that would make them alike and different. Marlow, from the novel Heart of Darkness, was a man who was on a mission through Cambodia to find Kurtz. Captain Willard, from the movie â€Å"Apocalypse Now†, was a man on a mission to exterminate a fellow member of the United States Armed Forces, Kurtz. â€Å"Apocalypse Now† is a Vietnam parallel of the novel Heart of Darkness. While both these men were on a search for a man, they both went through many difficult hardships on the way. Both of the men had different backgrounds before they began their journey. Marlow was an experienced sailor, while Willard was an experienced warrior. Willard was a man who went to hell and back in Vietnam. His soul was already corrupted and only got worse while his journey to Kurtz continued. Marlow was a man who just wanted a job. His experience in sailing was the reason he got into his mission. Marlow takes the place of a captain who was killed by natives while on a similar journey. Willard was a man who was picked by the secret service. He was looked at because of his strong history in the military. The history of both men was important for each of them to go their perspective missions. The surroundings for each man were unique. While both Marlow and Willard had to put up with natives, they had crews that were different. While Marlow had a crew with mostly natives, Willard had a crew of American soldiers who were serving their country. Willard’s crew was comprised of mostly young men who had no idea what they were doing. â€Å"Come on all of you big strong me,† writes Joseph McDonald, â€Å"Uncle Sam needs your help again†(Class handouts, McDonald). This would describe the men that were with Willard. None of them knew where they were headed or why they were leaving, all they knew was they were serving their country. Marlow’s crew knew that they were trying to figure out what happened to the ivory supply. Marlow had a crew full of mostly natives. Their respective ships were different too. While Marlow cruised on a French steamer, Willard was on a boat provided by the military. Both men had a unique surrounding that helped each respective tale. Both Marlow and Willard became obsessed with a man by the name of Kurtz. Marlow wanted to meet Kurtz very bad. He was so fascinated with his accomplishments that he... ...urtz. Marlow could tell that Kurtz was dying while Willard knew what he had to do and that was kill Kurtz. Willard had doubts about killing Kurtz but after seeing Kurtz’s camp he knew what had to be done. Marlow knew that Kurtz had a good reason to do what he did but the ways he did them was not moral. The plundering of ivory was not good. Marlow and Willard both went through a substantial change after meeting Kurtz. The mystery that both Marlow and Willard had about Kurtz was all over. They met this man that was on their minds since leaving for their missions. One cannot tell, if Marlow and Willard were disappointed, of the states they found Kurtz. Willard at one point was even considering joining Kurtz. Willard finally realized the power of the jungle and how it took in Kurtz. Willard and Marlow are both very similar but have differences as well. Throughout â€Å"Apocalypse Now† and Heart of Darkness, each character went through many conflicts. While the sailor and the soldier went on their search to find Kurtz, they encountered many different obstacles. I believe that Willard went through a rougher time then Marlow, but one can only imagine the struggles that encountered Marlow.