Forth To The Mighty Conflict. By Allen Cronenberg. (Tuscaloosa and London, A.L.: The University of Alabama Press, 1995.) “The Great Arsenal of the South” most Alabamians called home during the Second World War.…
Malcolm Gladwell in chapter one of Outliers convincingly describes that some people are more advantageous than others due to when they are born. In this case, Gladwell talks specifically to rule creators and authorities of sports leagues and elementary schools, because they have the power to make adjustments to unfair advantages. By unfair advantages, hockey leagues in Canada fixed an age cut-off date for incoming players, and elementary schools positioning the oldest students within a class to higher academic levels. Overall that signifies the older, the more prestige a person gets. To prove his point, Gladwell implied in a simple and understandable statement that "players are judged on their own performance" (pg.17), but rebutes his claim…
Alex Tizon born in the the Philippines immigrated to the United States with his family at a young age of four. Tizon faced many different changes like the things he did for fun, the way he looked and how he acted growing up in the United States as a child. Tizon later took these extreme ideals, which changed his view of the world and wrote “Land of Giants”, which uses emotion and stories about that time period in order to show how his family had to go through many different changes in order to fit in with American life. The very first thing Tizon tells the reader is what his family had to give up in order to be like an American.…
This essay discusses the correlation of themes and topics from Dr. Dwayne Mack’s book Black Spokane and connects it to key aspects and themes from Let Nobody Turn Us Around, and from African Americans: A Concise History. All three texts encompasses important aspects of African American oppression, the fight for civil and equal rights. During the time of slavery, many blacks were treated horribly and were not treated equally to whites. Many white Americans’ embraced American ethnologist study which stated that white Americans were a superior race and that African Americans are a lesser race (Hine, p. 190).…
Have you ever done something incredibly moronic, but that you thought was great. Then soon after that ephemeral feeling goes away, leaving you to realize with an inalienable feeling of dread. Sure you have everyone does it, however some people are worse than others. Author John Krakauer is one of those people he thought he would be able to climb the Devil’s Thumb by himself. This is severely different to Erik Weihenamyer’s approach, he knew he could not summit Mount Everest on his own.…
Has social media truly impacted activism? This is a question Malcolm Gladwell answers In his article, “Small Changes”. Gladwell pushes back the notion that social media has helped us become better organizers of protests than we’ve been before and that sites such as twitter are accountable for the surges of uprisings we’ve been experiencing. The core of his argument is that internet activism, while having reinvented social activism, is inefficient in regards to challenging the status quo, and I concur. The article begins with an anecdote, which Malcolm Gladwell consistently returns to discuss.…
People will do anything to win an argument. Ripping apart an argument trying to make the other person feel bad will cause tempers to flare. In her article “The Triumph of the Yell” written by Deborah Tannen, she talked about how almost everything is being argued and she is blaming journalists and politicians for feeding the flame of public arguments. In the article, Tannen talked a lot about a “culture of critique”.…
As we have developed as a society or civilization overtime, we have become more and more reliant on technology. Humorist David Sedaris, author of several collections of personal essays, and stories describes his experience with a neighboring family in “Us and Them” and how they did not have a television set. Sedaris recounts how they acted like an actual family and enjoyed spending time with one another. Sedaris provides an overarching theme that makes us all look at ourselves and how we revolve our lives around technology. Through the use of anecdotes and irony, a humorous tone, and organization of the essay, Sedaris conveys his message that technology has made us less of families and made us more greedy and anti social.…
As human beings, we constantly have different moods, and these are always changing. Sometimes we are happy, angry, defensive, morbid, depressed, etc. We express these changes in mood through behavior, body language, and overall attitudes that are for the most part easy to map by the people who are around you. Similarly, for Barbara in the graphic novel I Kill Giants, she is illustrated by JM Ken Nimura to have, in almost every panel of the book, either some different animal ears or a quirky hat that suits the personality crafted by Joe Kelly perfectly. Some might say this was just an unrelated artistic choice, but it means so much more than that-- with each change in the ears, it reflects how Barbara reacts to the events of the story.…
Fahrenheit 451 is one of the many books that is injected with multiple instances of social commentary in which Ray Bradbury critiques the citizens and their home society. Most of which refer to the censorship the government imposes on the society and their people. The citizens have been brainwashed to destroy all of their community’s past. This is evident when we see that firemen are completely different than what we know today and what they were in the past. Firemen are now trained to light things on fire instead of extinguishing.…
American Dream; to Some, Not What it Seemed “The Americans” by Viet Thanh Nguyen offers the distinct view of a self-contradictory America that while allows the freedom of movement towards success is also an exclusionary destructive nation. “The Americans” follows a family divided by their views of being an American as each member comes to terms with their identity and being open-minded to others’ differences. “The Americans” shows that America can be a place where people of all different backgrounds can live freely and work their way to success. James Carver grew up as a black man in Alabama constantly having to deal with racism and the feeling of non-belonging. Carver struggled with his identity until he found his place as an aerial bomber in the US Army.…
The short story “The Champ” written by T.C. Boyle is about a young man that has been the champion and set multiple records. As strange as competitive eating may sound there are people that actually enjoy watching and/ or be apart of the contest. In “ The Champ” Boyle gives the reader an insight from the main character’s perspective. The story is about Angelo D., the main character, and how he starts the short story off as the champ. Although he begins as the champ with a variety of records set, Kid Gullet (Angelo’s challenger) is swiftly coming to snatch the crown from Angelo.…
Perhaps the single, most common answer to the question of the purpose of school is that it is to shape young minds in preparing them for the future. For some, school is where they go learn skills and techniques useful in the work world. For others, they are just forced to go to school, to be hassled with the burdens of overwhelming assignments, which deprive them of their ever so fulfilling social lives and other salient priorities. However, for the students in Crenshaw High School, school was a sanctuary, a safe haven; the only place where they felt accepted, worthy and optimistic. School was their only outlet where they could openly express themselves, especially in their English classes.…
Discovering an exotic and unfamiliar object, it is only normal for people to trace its origin and interpret it from different angles. What's more, they will even appreciate and exhibit it if it has graceful features and special values. However, the above-described actions can be found in neither “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez nor “The Drowned Giant” by J. G. Ballard. The former takes place in a small city with religious leadership as rule while the latter takes place in a bigger and more modern one. In spite of the difference in background, the general public of the two stories both lack imagination on an individual level.…
America: The Bigger The Better It’s Christmas day and Alex Tizon goes to open your first gift; he automatically picks the biggest present to open first because he’s been taught his whole life that bigger is better. Almost all Americans have the philosophy that bigger is better because we live in a world where everything needs to be bigger: our phones, meals, computers, watches, cars, and everything else. It’s not just our appliances though, Alex Tizon captures this in his piece “Land of The Giants”.…