Surrounding environments influence an individual’s course of action whether it is beneficial or harmful. In the short story, “Horses of the Night” by Margaret Laurence, the character of Vanessa grows to notice that some people do not change after all. She notices that what changes is the growth in awareness and self-realization. Therefore, it can be said that an individual who tries to escape reality get caught and as a result, they create their own world that only results in a temporary happiness. At the beginning of the story, Vanessa is a naïve and oblivious child.…
Books do more than just tell stories; they have the power to inspire, educate, and transform lives. For fifty-six years, Harper Lee’s Pulitzer Prize-winning To Kill a Mockingbird has been an influential social commentary on prejudice in the deep south. Controversial at its inception for its progressive attitude towards civil rights, the novel has since become a staple in classrooms around the world for its message of equality and compassion. Elie Wiesel’s Night is a powerful narrative of his own experiences as a teenaged Jew during the second world war. The slim volume shocks readers with an unflinching representation of the horrors of the Holocaust and the resilience of the human spirit.…
In the “Long Night of the Little Boats” humans’ values, both on the part of the little boat rescuers and the soldiers, played a part in the outcome of Dunkirk. However the British common citizens came together to help the British defeat Germany. The British soldiers were trapped in Dunkirk, France and were almost defeated by the Germany soldiers. In Paragraph 1, it said “There were fishing boats, shrimp catchers, and ancient car Ferrier helped the British army.…
The Dark Side of Hollywood Usually Hollywood is made out to be all about glitz and glamour. In Nathanael West’s book entitled The Day of the Locust, West explores the dark side of Hollywood we normally do not see. He goes about this exploration in a dystopian and grotesque manner. The very first reference to this grotesque and dystopian society occurs within the first chapter of the book.…
The new D.A. Lawson wins his election even though he is an inexperienced lawyer, because Adler called on the votes of the people he has helped with his home renovations, the poor African Americans. Lawson’s election to D.A. proves to unfortunate for Williams. It is suggested but never proven that Adler influenced Lawson to attempt to convict Williams for murder instead of an expected lesser charge. Adlers influence and Lawson’s desperation to win also reveal themselves during the trials. While the evidence supports a claim that Williams created false evidence and dressed the crime scene to help support his claim of self-defense, Lawson and the police are guilty of mishandling evidence and then hiding the proof of the offense.…
The Day of the Locust, by Nathaniel West, explores the harsh realities and effects of living in Los Angeles. West uses the degradation of his main characters as his example of how Los Angeles changes people. Through the lives and experiences of Tod, and Homer, the readers see the ways the city alters one’s characteristics from one that is greatly ambitious, into one that is extremely arrogant. Additionally, the novel highlights the fallacy of how Los Angeles is known as the “land of dreams”. Instead, West makes it clear that Los Angeles is actually the land where dreams come to die.…
Historical Appreciation Project: In the Heat of the Night Fifty years ago, as the Civil Rights Movement gained momentum, activists protested across the deep South, and tensions rose between black demonstrators and the police. During this time, John Ball wrote his first book. It was a murder mystery set in a small Carolina town. The crime-solving detective of Ball’s novel was Virgil Tibbs, an famed homicide detective from Pasadena, California, who happened to be passing through the area on the night of the killing, having visited his mother downstate.…
Walter Dean Myers' graphic novel Monster is about a sixteen-year-old African American boy named Steve Harmon, This graphic novel is written in a first person perspective from Steve's view. He shows himself through his journal entries and a screenplay. In this book, the protagonist’s are Kathy O’Brien, Mr. Sawicki, and Steve Harmon. The antagonists are the justice system, Richard Evans or more commonly known “bobo”, James King, the Assistant District Attorney (Sandra Petrocelli) and Steve King's lawyer Asa Briggs. The story takes place in Manhattan, Harlem, the courtroom in a city lockup, and sometimes in the neighborhood where Steve Harmon lives.…
A Dark Dance in the Woods People who have done wrong, out of fear, pride, and longing of sorts will do whatever it takes to hide their mistakes. This theme takes deep roots in the play The Crucible written by Arthur Miller. In Miller’s play, Abigail and a group of girls were caught dancing in the woods. Dancing in the woods prompts the suspicion of witchcraft in the Puritan time. With the fear of being charged with witchcraft, Abigail and the girls create a genius plan to fool all the townspeople into thinking there are people in Salem who are witches.…
While the man was on the road, he was beaten by robbers to the point where he could not get up and walk. While he was lying there, a priest passes him by without offering any help, and so did a Levite. Jesus seemed to have been challenging the religiousness of the two religious groups, by implying that they put their righteousness rituals before the well-being of others who they are supposed to love. The specific implications were that the priest and the Levite were unwilling to become unclean by touching a dead body, or blood, therefore they would not want to touch the man who was hurt. The third man who passed the beaten man was a Samaritan.…
Economists Robert Shiller and George Akerlof liberated their thoughts and findings in Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why it Matters for Global Capitalism in 2009. Both Shiller and Akerlof are highly recognizable names when it comes to economics. Akerlof is a professor of economics at the University of California Berkeley and is recognized by his achievements in 2001 where he was the Nobel Prize winner for economics. At Yale University, Shiller is also an economic professor and has recently accepted the Nobel Memorial Prize in 2013. Shiller and Akerlof chose a deliberate comic on the front of their work, highlighting monkeys on a stock market curve.…
Abstract: Tennessee Williams’s plays follow the morality tradition with a variation that there is no poetic justice at the end. His play, The Night of the Iguana reflects his characters’ struggle to establish their identity amongst dualities and conflicts. Williams shows the condition of human beings, their struggle in this world of binaries allegorically through the struggle of the Iguana trapped by the Mexican boys. The sadistic pleasure the Mexican boys displays the coarse, violent and rude aspect of life in this Universe. However, Williams reposes his faith in nobility, in God by prompting the protagonist; Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon to play the role of God and free the Iguana.…
Plot Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus tells the story of two magicians, Celia and Marco, who are sworn into a competition against each other by their mentors, who are former magicians. In a world where magic is all too real, both Celia and Marco started training at a young age to defeat their mystery opponent, only for them to find out it is the two of them. However, the only way for someone to win is for the other to perish.…
The text assigned for week 14 from Schroeder’s Muhammad’s People “The Sophisticated” and Irwin’s The Wandering Scholars “Night and Horses and The Desert”, as well as the Maqamat al-hariri “The Thirty-Third Assembly, Called ‘Of Tiflis’ ”, are taken from Arabic literature on the tenth through twelfth centuries, but they are most definitely not “Islamic”. With regard to religion and literature, it is as though there is conflict for the sole purpose of adding flare, salacity, and hilarity to the pieces. If these pieces of literature were one hundred percent guided by religion, then there would be negative repercussions for the writers, as well as the readers, because a lot of material in the literature is haram. There must be some literary styles adopted from other cultures, just as Islamic art appeared to have foreign styles. As far as religion goes, if these literary pieces were not fiction, most of these characters would probably end up in hell.…
The movie Nightcrawler, directed by Dan Gilroy, begins with a Los Angelean thief, Louis Bloom, being denied employment. After seeing a career opportunity in filming and selling crime footage, Bloom pawns stolen items to purchase a camcorder and police scanner. With his new equipment, Bloom gets close-up, graphic footage of a shooting which he sells to Channel 6 News. The film editor, Nina, praises Bloom for his natural eye for the scene. Inspired to improve, Bloom learns the police code and hires the homeless Rick to assist him.…