Literature Business And Social Change

Literature, Business, and Social Change

Literature plays a vital role as business cope with social change. Literature on social change can guide a business to reflect on their establishment. The role of literature helps a business understand human nature, adapt to globalization, and understand cultural diversity. Reading a variety of genres and styles of writing, helps shape literate concepts and minds. This paper shall analyze cultural diversity in a literature fashion, with three selected genres: poem, fiction, and an essay. Team A's paper theme is learning to embrace changes in culture. This paper shall make an analytical argument that each genre can play a literature role to a business as it copes with social change. Additionally, this paper shall address how differently literature portrays business in the past and present; and address how writing about changes in business helps the writer deal with changes in the workplace. The paper will also include general lessons about workplace change that literature can teach.

Poem, fictional story, and essay:

The profound poem The Crayon Box that Talked by Shane DeRolf conveys the simple message that differences should be endured, accepted, and embraced. The crayons soon learn that when they work together the outcome is much more beautiful, colorful and interesting. Each crayon celebrates his or her rainbow of differences from the same box. This poem is written in third person point of view to draw the attention of children. The poem was later placed in text of a book, which became a children's book and the cornerstone for both the Advertising Council's 1997 antidiscrimination public service message campaign (DeRolf, 1997). This poem used imagery and figurative language where the author used personification to make the crayons come alive and speak. The anthropomorphic carving and pointy-heads of the crayons help the imagery (DeRolf, 1997). The various crayon colors lodged on the toy-store shelf expressed their dislike for one another and the blue crayon stated, "Something here is wrong" (DeRolf, 1997, Ln 6). The book inscribed a young girl as a character in the poem. She overheard the crayons' disputes and decided to take them home and set things right. She laid out her new drawing tools and created a scene using all colors. When she finished, the crayons spoke. The yellow crayon said, "I do like Red." The green crayon said, "So do I" (DeRolf, 1997, Ln 17). Although the outcome of DeRolf's rhyming poem is predictable, the poem, along with the graphics in the book, effectively presents the difficult concepts of individuality and unity for young children.

Analytical argument: One can analytically argue that this poem can play a literature role to a business as it copes with social change. Although this poem is used specifically for children to help identify their difference, it can also be used to facilitate businesses to understand and appreciate diversity in all walks of life. The crayons represent workers of different diversity. The box represents a business. The girl represents a facilitator or mediator. The facilitator or mediator helps workers understand the importance of each team member; and how important embracing diversity helps a business to function effectively. As the world changes, people change. No one should be pre-judged based on gender, ethnic background, physical appearance, age, title, or sexual orientation. When workers learn to appreciate each person's difference, then they can achieve the job's objective and can accept social change. Everyone loses when people are pre-judged.

The short story that will be examined is, “Bargain” by A.B. Guthrie Jr. “Bargain” is a story when first read the reader probably would not realize a diversity theme within the story. This story is told in the first person by the character Al, who may or may not be the author at an earlier age. To understand the diversity theme, a reader must focus on the two main characters of the story, Mr. Baumer, who is a Dutch immigrant in a small town, a self-made man who has learned the English language and become a storeowner. The other main character is Slade, a big and tough character who is freighter. The author throughout the short story builds the conflict between these two characters. The conflict supposedly stems over a bill or debt owed to Mr. Baumer by Slade. The character Mr. Baumer continually tries to deliver the bill to Slade who trashed the bill is given to him. Slade, in a fit of anger, get into a confrontation with Mr. Baumer squeezing his nose so hard almost bringing tears to Mr. Baumer eyes. The reoccurring theme in the story is first repeated the narrator Al, it is good to know how to read and figure, the character Mr. Baumer would continually repeat to the character Al. Mr. Baumer who earlier accused Slade of stealing from him, particularly the liquor Mr. Baumer would ship to other merchant stores, which Slade vehemently denies. In the end Mr. Baumer who knows that Slade cannot read plants poison liquor, clearing marked in one of his shipment to the demise of the character Slade.

In order to critically analyze the diversity issues for today’s workplace the reader must first identify the three underlying issues in the story and how it relates to today’s workforce. First issue, Mr. Baumer is an educated foreigner who is bilingual and an ambitious businessman. In today’s workplace many native-born workers resent the successes of foreign-born workers who are focused when coming to America and aggressive in achieving their goals, such is the case of the resentment Slade had toward Mr. Baumer. Second, uneducated workers have a tendency to harbor ill will toward educated workers, thus causing conflict on some jobs, as was the case when Mr. Baumer would point out to the character Al in the story to learn how to read so that he would not end of bitter like the character Slade. Third, people often offer opinions concerning diversity issues on the job but solutions, are rarely achieved. In the story many people offered the character Mr. Baumer opinion about what he should do about the conflict with Slade but other than Al, the youngster, who suggested calling the police to rectify the situation, know one offered Mr. Baumer a solution to his conflict with Slade. Many of times in the workplace opinions are expressed freely concerning diversity issues but hardly ever are there any viable solutions to correct the conflicts, hence, the workplace fights, violent conflict, and the high turnover rate for those who just leave their jobs because solutions are lacking.

The essay: “As a society, we must be united in our diversity” by Clay Clack is an essay that