A Separate Peace and Dead Poets Society Compare and Contrast In the book A Separate Peace and in the movie Dead Poets Society, there are some similarities and some differences. In the book and in the movie there are common characters, settings, and themes. But, there is also differences in them as well. The similarities for the book and the movie are they both have secret clubs, the character Charlie in the movie is like Finny in the book and the character Todd from the movie is like Gene in the book.…
Sometimes individuals must face tasks that might be against their will, but agreements made in life are promises that people have to follow up on. When an individual has an emotional attachment to something they must do, it becomes a commitment. Ernest J. Gaines’ novel, A Lesson Before Dying, tells the story of Jefferson, an uneducated, young black man, and Grant Wiggins, a male school teacher, who both struggle in a racist southern community. Living in Louisiana in the 1940s, blacks lead lives that are viewed as minor from a white’s perspective. Although Grant has duties that must be fulfilled for the benefit of himself and others, he finds them difficult because he feels irrelevant to the world.…
There are many movies that shows transcendentalism. The movie Dead Poet’s Society display transcendentalism. Transcendentalism means an idealistic literary and philosophical movement of the mid-19th century. In the movie they guided individualism and rebellion. In the Dead Poet’s Society Mr. Keating shows his students transcendentalism and teaches to how and to use it.…
In the dystopian novel, The Giver by Lois Lowry, the theme of oppression leading to freedom is illustrated in Lowry’s use of the literary elements of allusion, foreshadowing, and characterization. The society that Lowry creates is a perfect world without crime, war, or poverty. Every person has a specific role and they are not allowed to make any choices on their own. One person, The Giver, is responsible for holding all the memories of all the pain and pressures of life. Now Jonas has been chosen to receive training to become the new Giver, and he carries an enormous burden.…
Hope of Changes In A Lesson Before Dying, author Ernest J. Gaines describes how a dehumanized black community of the 1940s struggles to break free of the oppression they have endured in a racist society in order to gain respect, pride, and dignity. However, the novel contains several key factors that make it hopeful. First, the sad and pessimistic story of Jefferson’s impending execution transitions into an optimistic fight against the prejudice and injustice as Jefferson learned to “walk” to Gruesome Gertie --the electric chair-- with dignity and purpose. Second, Jefferson’s teacher, Grant, discerns his responsibility for the community and regains his sense of competence to make a difference for the people in the community.…
Markedly, toward the end of the novel, Ellison initiates the main character’s understanding of said oppression in a dimly lit setting, the perfect atmosphere for an inner awakening of the protagonist. As the narrator walks down a New York street dressed as a totally different man (Rinehart), his eyes and ears open as the truth of his very being is unveiled unto him. He thinks to himself “It was quieter now. No one paid me any special attention” (Ellison 493).…
Imagine: A world where you could be yourself, with no consequences. Do anything you believe is right, and to find beauty in all things. Might sound practically impossible but there is a way to live like that, and that way is to live Transcendentally. Transcendentalism was a movement in the 1830’s that believed that the individual can find the truth within themselves and that God, nature and human beings are all connected. Living transcendentally has its ups and downs, however the benefits from living like this outweighs the consequences, as seen with Knox Overstreet and Mr. John Keating in the movie Dead Poet’s Society.…
DESPITE IT ALL, WE STILL SAIL ON… Why have we chosen to wallow? Despair? Listen to the Ancestors.…
Prior to this point in the poem, Hughes has offered the reader the exact imagery of what oppression may look like, but at this point the poem changes as the reader is left to deal with the bomb of subjugation and make sense of what it personally implies for them. For a person struggling with like circumstances or for a person watching such struggles, it may provoke action. For others it may provide understanding as to why explosions take place when humans are treated unfairly. Hughes last sentence of the poem brings the reader into the dilemma of fighting for basic rights, he shows the reader that the only option is to take action as the other consequences are a miserable…
The emphasis on the "grave" in the poem directs the reader's attention to the acts of violence and brutality. All of these images reaffirm a poetic insight communicated through directed ambiguity created by the poet; an ambiguity that must then be resolved by the individual reader’s interpretive visualization of the poem. The atmosphere of malevolence is further expounded through the introduction of an unknown Nazi guard from "Deutschland," who romanticizes the desire to meet “Margarete.” She is the love of Faust and serves as an idealized innocent blond-haired female figure; and she is ironically contrasted with “Shulamith,” another woman introduced in the poem who symbolizes a Jewish feminine figure known from the Song of Songs in the Old Testament. Shulamith is also a symbol of Israel, seen as God’s wife in the Hebrew Scriptures.…
Many philosophers studied long and hard focusing on transcendentalism. Transcendentalism is the process of transcending the material world, and paving your own path through life as an individual. The idea was started by Ralph Waldo Emerson, and latter continued with his student Henry David Thoreau, and then Walt Whitman. Along with these men, transcendentalism had a main role in the events of Dead Poets Society directed by Peter Weir. These three men, and movie all follow the six elements of transcendentalism.…
This growing inequality that leads to poverty is parallel to the injustice that Grant and his community face in A Lesson Before Dying. Many African Americans, both today and in the novel, try to escape the poverty and oppression independently, but working together and looking at a these issues in a larger scope would be more effective in fighting…
Doty’s various descriptions seemed to hinder the meaning of his topics but the multiple ways of conveying the mackerel helped connect to the single idea of community. Doty’s expression of groups seems to be one of praise because groups allow people to live on through one another. The group of fish is made of individuals but they no longer become individuals when they are together. A community is made of different people that make up a common idea and therefore must be represented in different ways. In the essay “Can Poetry Console a Grieving Public,” Doty describes an event after 9/11 that demonstrates duality in groups.…
In the film Freedom Writers, a high school teacher, Erin Gruwell, helps her students overcome their violent environment. Her students, conditioned by gang violence and racial segregation, are reluctant to interact with one another and have a limited outlook on life. But, by having them write journals, she makes them set aside their differences and realise that there is more to life than what they have experienced throughout their short lives. Perceptual errors negatively affect the student’s relationships. During the initial days of school, Eva Benitez confuses facts with inferences.…
Poet for our time's commentary The headlines of Newspapers are those that catch our eye, and “grab attention”. The poem Poet for our Times by Carol Ann Duffy is one that explores, from the perspective of a newspaper headline writer, scandals and the normal aspects discussed in poetry. Referencing News headlines, the speaker, who is in a bar, provides the audience with social critics as well as the state of what art has become in 1980’s Britain.…