This American Life

John Steinbeck expressed his life through his novels, novellas and poems. For instance, many of Steinbeck’s literary works take place in an area similar to his own home, Salinas Valley, California, an area full of farms, ranches, and orchards (Bloom). Also, California was an area known for attracting farm hands and migrant workers during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl eras because the soil was more nutrient-rich due to its short history of farming (Bloom). This setting transferred over to…

States, residing in quiet cities and working leisurely hours, satisfied to consume little and live modestly. Sustainable living is the norm, and synthetic materials and products are largely avoided. To a market fundamentalist like Milton Friedman, this lack of competition and apparent productivity seems much more like a dystopia. In the unlikely scenario that Friedman were to be transported to Ecotopia, he would be desperate to make it more tolerable for himself. Thus, armed with capitalistic…

The play follows the story of a traveling salesman, Willy Loman, and his last 24 hours alive before his death. It follows his life and has many flashbacks where Willy is remembering his family and is eager to find where he went wrong in life to be going through this mid life crisis of having to be distant from his family as well as financial woes. This play was written through the late 1940s and during that time period it was the end of the second world war and so not only America, but the whole…

Carelessness: A Plague of the 1920s The Roaring Twenties is an era known for its creativity, chaos and carelessness. As all 3 thrive in American life, carelessness seems to set a blaze in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author uses the 1920’s element of carelessness to write a novel on how it represents a problem in the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses Jordan Baker and Owl Eyes’ careless persona’s to depict the carelessness America suffers from. Jordan Baker is an affluent liar…

Rationale of Verse,” to an overly complicated view of rhythm and meter, but the importance of sound in Poe’s poems cannot be overstated. A master of rhythm, Poe's syllable-by-syllable approach to sound yielded some of the most memorable lines in American poetry. His ear for mimicry is unparalleled. "The Bells" is an onomatopoetic marathon of tinkling tintinnabulation and clanging, banging bells, bells, bells…

Rip Van Winkle, a short story by Washington Irving, displays elements of the American Romanticism, as the author depicts the natural landscape associated with fantasy. The supernatural is a very prevalent theme in Romantic literature, and so is the love for the natural landscape, in opposition to the modern life in the city. These elements help isolate Rip Van Winkle from society, in a way that when he returns from his fantastic 20-year sleep, he becomes “the local storyteller, demonstrating the…

Stress Threw out life you will run into things that will create stress. It is good to know the types of stress and how to eliminate it, or decrease it to a healthy level. Stress can cause a handful of problems such as low energy or ambition, accelerated ageing, headaches and, depression/anxiety. Stress is a factor that affects everyone and can cause many problems. There is a lot of different types of stress: mental, physical, emotional, nutritional, and toxic. The ways to cope with mental,…

happiness, Grey’s Anatomy is the perfect option. You’re constantly at the tip of your toes wondering what will happen next. Not only, will it cause you to wonder what you’re doing with your life at possibly three in the morning, but it’ll leave you lying awake questioning every circumstance you have personally faced in life. It seems like an exaggeration, but it is one of the best shows ever produced on television. Shonda Rhimes truly captures what it is to be a successful television series.…

Sethe’srememories about that horrendous past were so agonizing that they came in broken and disconnected parts in which the death of her mother was fused with of her daughter’s.Indeed, Sethe’s real healing initiates with her reintegration into her community, at the end of the novel, because being part of a community again means that she was not alone anymore, as she felt after her mother’s and daughter’s deaths. The community ritual of rescuing her is a symbol of forgiveness. Morrison brings in…

Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper was first released in Australia on January 22, 2015. It is the film version of Chris Kyle’s personal memoir of the same name, written by Jason Hall. The film is set between Texas and Iraq and follows Chris Kyle on his ten year journey as a sniper for the seals. Played by Bradley Cooper, Chris finds the love of his life Taya played by Sienna Miller, but feels his need to serve his country is stronger than his need to be with his family. Throughout his journey he…