The Role of Class Status Versus Love in Sense and Sensibility - Literature Essay Samples

In the novel Sense and Sensibility, Jane Austen employs various thematic elements in order to educate the reader on the nature of higher British society in the 19th century. One of the most impactful motifs in the book is the notion that class drives one’s decisions and becomes somewhat of a higher power that dictates marriages, familial ties, and living arrangements. People are accepted or exiled based on their social standing, and marriages â€Å"for love† are a rarity among the semi-noble. Throughout the novel, Austen makes a unique commentary on the values of society while simultaneously telling an interesting story of a very particular case of a family (the Dashwoods) who are somewhat stuck in the middle. Austen examines the varying importance of the roles that class and love play in society through her juxtaposition of various romantic situations in the novel. Primarily, Austen sheds light on the cold and selfish requirements of society in order to examine how society’s pressures have imposed on the Dashwood family. Willoughby and Marianne, for example, are â€Å"in love† but cannot be married. While this might seem ridiculous to the modern reader, Austen clarifies the seemingly ludicrous nature of society through Willoughby’s dismissal of and later revisit to Marianne, in which he explains why he has left her for the wealthier Ms. Grey. Although Willoughby realizes he can never be happy with her, he can at least come to coexist with Ms. Grey with a sense of financial stability. He rebuffs Marianne not because he was not in love with her, but because he was raised in a class system where high society is taught to preserve their family name rather than to be socially unstable and banished to the dregs of England’s multi-tiered class system. So, even though â€Å"[he] felt that she was infinitely dearer to me tha n any other woman in the world,† Willoughby can never be with Marianne because of the limitations that he feels override any sense of true love (Austen 274). But while even the spiteful Willoughby comes to accept his superficiality, Marianne deludes herself with unrealistic perceptions of love and wealth. When Elinor practically claims that â€Å"wealth has much to do with† happiness, Marianne rebuffs this notion, claiming that â€Å"beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction† (Austen 152). But when the sisters compared actual figures, Marianne’s romantic idealism is flattened, as her idea of a â€Å"competence† is two thousand pounds a year, which doubles Elinor’s notion of wealth. Austen uses irony in order to communicate that the importance of money does not diminish among those who claim to be above it. Elinor’s relationship with Edward is also one defined by the strict limitations of society at the time. Although Edward would love to pursue his own lifestyle, he is consistently restrained by his concerned mother. In order to live comfortably and inherit his rightful fortune (according to primogeniture), he is forced to marry a woman of desirable status and Elinor, being the practical voice of the Dashwood family, forces herself to accept this. The secret engagement of Edward and the lower class Lucy Steele is a shock to everyone, as without his family inheritance or any semblance of a dowry from Lucy’s side, the two could not possibly live comfortably. Lucy realizes that Edward is no longer the heir to any fortune, and she refocuses her affections to his younger brother. Austen utilizes the character of Lucy Steele to represent the ideals of society as a whole, succumbing to greedy impulse rather than consulting more than just the state of their wallets. â€Å"Her co nstant endeavor to appear to advantage† is seen as being in poor taste (Austen 198). The contrast between needing money versus wanting money is compared very uniquely by Austen, who seems to be telling her readers that some money is necessary, although the actual desire of this money is tawdry. The eventual union of Edward and Elinor is seemingly impossible until the honorable Colonel Brandon sweeps in with a free property for them to stay on and unrealistically kind financial support. While Austen seems to be arguing for the steadfastness of true love, she subtly suggests that the economic insurance of a romantic partner is of similar or the same importance. Towards the final stages of the book, both Elinor and Marianne are left financially comfortable and in love, which is truly an ideal situation when considering all of the odds working against them. While some may see her characters’ love-based relationships as a proclamation of rejection of social norms, under a closer examination it appears that nobody had to make any tangible sacrifices to achieve their harmonious marriages. While some of the people featured in Sense and Sensibility may be a little more outspoken than your typical young lady of the time, there is no real social commentary being made. Marianne, the supposed anomaly to typical British society, eventually conforms, marrying a well-established gentleman. She realizes the err of her ways with Willoughby, saying that she has nothing to regret but â€Å"[her] own folly† in blinding herself with the concept of a realistic marriage with a man who lacks wealth (Austen 331). Elinor also is bestowed with both a r eunion with Edward and somewhat of financial stability thanks to Colonel Brandon. With her relatively middle-class standings, her effort to maintain her practical outlook results in various comments on the state of class from in an almost degrading manner. In her attempt to avoid going to London, she states that, â€Å"[she] think[s] very well of Mrs. Jennings heart, she is not a woman whose society can afford us pleasure, or whose protection will give us consequence† (Austen 258). Elinor, despite her intentions of kindness, always feels the need to uphold her family’s comfort. Austen definitely advocates for the existence of true love through the characters of Elinor and Marianne, but it seems that she is making a separate claim that the presence of wealth is nearly or equally as vital to one’s happiness. While seemingly making a plea for the importance of love in a marriage, Austen understatedly suggests that staying within social guidelines and marrying someone of an appropriate financial standing is still crucial to prosperity as a whole.

Briefly Describe The Event Study Methodology Procedure - 1650 Words

Briefly Describe The Event Study Methodology Procedure (Essay Sample) Content: Event study methodologyStudent IDAugust 2017Tutor:Submission Date:Event Study methodology procedureStep 1The first step in event study methodology involves explicitly defining the event which the study aims to investigate its economic effect. According to MacKinlay (1997) the event could affect a single company such as announcement of earnings or affecting multiple companies in case of merger or acquisition. Additionally, the event under investigation should be new and unexpected in the public arena, otherwise there will not be expected considerable reaction of stock prices of the firm. According to Tong (2010), the event under evaluation may either be within firms control such as divided distribution and bonus share, or outside the firms control such as macroeconomic announcement that in some way affect a companys operation. When such consideration is undertaken in choosing an event, it is assumed that that under efficient market hypothesis, the economic effect of an event will be immediately be reflected in stock prices (Shaheen, 2006)Step 2At this stage, the researcher should specify the date of the event. Such date is defined by Sitthipongpanich (2011, 62) as the announcement date of the event i.e the first day of trading when the event occurrence became public information. As such, if event announcement is done during a non-trading day or the time after the trading has closed, the next trading day then becomes the event day and if announcement is done during a trading day then that day becomes the event day. To mitigate the problem of arriving at biased results, the researcher should also drop any confounding events affecting a company. This is because some news regarding a firm may be released jointly and systematic. And even if a large sample is taken, Park (2004) notes that such systematic bias will not disappear from the results. For instance, if the analysis involve stock splits, the stock splits event announced together with other new s of a company should be dropped to make sure that the economic effect of such event is due to the event alone.Step 3The third steps involve identifying the time line that an event will be studied. The timeline involves selection of the test period usually referred to as event window and estimation period (Ahern, 2009). The estimation window is will be used to evaluate the expected behaviour of companys equity returns. The impact on stock by an event will be evaluated in the window period that incorporates some time before and after event announcement date; pre-event window and post-event window (MacKinlay, 1997). But this step possess one main challenge to a researcher; the choice of appropriate lengths and points of the estimation of event window. According to Corrado (1989) there is no definite rule for allocating the period length of event window for event study's estimation. However, while the choice of these parameters discretionary lies on the researcher, a balance of trade-o ff between potential parameter shift and improved accuracy in estimation should be stroked. This is because, according to Ahern (2004) longer window period usually leads to greater accuracy since they encompass large data. On the other hand such period elevate the risk of including other confounding events that can distort the accuracy of estimated parameters and overall economic effect inferences. As such, if confounding events are identified it is recommendable to adopt a short period while a long period is preferred if such events do not exist. However, according to Park (2004), the results from event study when there exist no confounding factors are not sensitive to changing window lengths as long as the window period is over 100 days. Further, the researcher should make sure that any two windows should not overlap.Step 4Armed with specific study event, event time, window and estimation period, the next step involves collecting data on stock prices retrieving the stock price dat a for the pre and post estimation period as well as well as estimation period. By using company identifiers, the researcher should retrieve stock price data for the company or companies under interest. However, the researcher should be aware of company identifiers because most databases uses the current firm identifier and this could change due to mergers, acquisition, rebranding or change of name. By using the defined event and its date, sample companies stocks can be chosen and classified into different groups; high, low or medium. The data should also be obtained or reclassified in the correct time format that reflect periodic measure of window period. in the For instance, if the researcher is interested with economic effect of earning announcement, the data collected would be daily stock value and the event study would be on the earnings announcement. Sitthipongpanich (2011) finds that if the event type relates to a specific firm and multiple firms are to be included in the stud y, then the event date vary for each firm. As such it is necessary for the researcher to record data for each sample company in accordance to its event date. Armed with event, event date, estimation window, event window and stock data the researcher will now be able to calculate abnormal returns to evaluate economic effect of the event.Step 5The next step in event study methodology involves the choice of the models to be used to determine abnormal returns; the returns associated with the event of interest at the date of announcement. In this practice the researcher should first calculate the expected returns for the event under study date, defined by Park (2004) as theoretical return that would have been experienced if the event under examination would not have occurred. The abnormal return is simply the difference between the expected return and the returns experienced on the day of event. The next section explains how abnormal returns are obtained.Step 6Estimation of expected retu rns (Normal Returns)One of the most important feature of event study methodology regards the choice of the model to be use in estimating the expected returns; returns in absence of an event. A number of models that include market model, constant mean return model, multifactor model and Capital asset pricing model (CAPM). According to Barber and Lyon (1997) constant mean return model and the market model are the most commonly used model to estimate expected returns due to its simplicity. Additionally, Brown and Warner (1985) points out that simple mean returns model often produces no different results from those from more sophisticated models because by choosing a more sophisticated model does not reduce the variance of abnormal returns.By assuming that expected normal return by company but are constant over time, the constant mean model is defined as;For each stock I at time T within the window period where;ui= , E[] =0 and var ()=As opposed to the constant mean model, the mark et model relates the return of any specific security to that of market portfolio MacKinlay (1997). The model assumes joint normality of asset in its linear specification and is defined as follows;, E[]=0, var()=2 where;is the expected return, is the is the market portfolio for asset i. According to MacKinlay (1997) this model presents an improvement of constant mean return model in that it removes variations related to market return, thereby, reducing the variance observed in the abnormal returns and elevating its ability to detect event effects. The preference to this model will largely depend on the reported coefficient of determination in the regression model.Step 7Abnormal ReturnsThe abnormal returns are very criti...