Friday, January 31, 2020
“The Unknown Citizen†by W. H. Auden Essay Example for Free
â€Å"The Unknown Citizen†by W. H. Auden Essay â€Å"The Unknown Citizen†by W. H. Auden is a compelling piece of poetry that is multi-layered in thought. While it is poignant, it is also replete with tension. I have therefore decided to give three responses/presentations to this poem in the following executions: a) An MTV, b) A piece of Installation Art, and c) A Short Story. We shall tackle these one by one in the following paragraphs.                        Although the poem was written in the late 1930’s, much of its message still resonates today especially now that we are faced with technology that enables the quick transfer of information throughout the world. To be able to reach a broad audience, I thought of coming up with an MTV as a presentation because this medium is vastly appreciated by a wide spectrum of people. The MTV will have an instrumental piece of music as background. I am quite inclined to use 1920’s jazz as the musical genre a la the musical score for the movie ‘Chicago’ – mainly because jazz especially of this era reflects the moods, emotions, thoughts, etc. of the working class.                        The MTV’s visuals will consist of fast cuts of real people in real time doing a variety of daily chores/work. I would like to get visuals of factory workers at an industrial plant, rank and file employees at a Fortune 500 company, pedestrians at a busy street in a big city, etc. These visuals will be interspersed or dissolved on a background of a clock whose hour and second hands are rotating rapidly. This visual juxtaposition I think would be effective in imparting the message that we, as a workforce, have become slaves in the highly industrialized world.                         The second presentation I would like to propose is an Installation Art. The installation will compose of different objects, articles of clothing, supplies, etc. that I will gather from different people and/or areas of work. These objects will be arranged at random to form a sculpture-like piece that can stand on its own. The objects then will be ‘washed’ with a gray paint or metallic finish. The rationale for this presentation is to link or remind the audience of everyday objects that we take for granted but are part of our daily life. Objects that will remind us of our daily grind or the ennui we experience at work. The finishing of the installation in gray or metallic color will further enhance the ‘coldness’ or routine nature of ‘The Unknown Citizen’. The tactile nature of the installation will hopefully entice the audience to take a closer look at the piece of art. Also, copies of Auden’s poem may be strewn on the floor of the exhibition area where this installation will take place.                        The third response will be a short story that will basically deal with a man’s isolation from the world at large. Just like in the poem the main character in the story will be nameless, the readers however, will be able to get to know this ‘man’ by way of the descriptive manner that it will be written as well as the dialogue that will be included. The setting of the short story will be in contemporary times set in Middle America. I see the main character as a white male in his thirties, married with children. His wife is also a working mother. The isolation the main character feels will stem from his routine at the workplace, his ever-widening gap with his wife due to less time spent together as both are working, and his alienation from his teenage children who are caught up in a world of their own.                        The man’s catharsis will take form of his resignation from his work and goes on a long trip, alone, into the countryside in search of a connection with his past and a better understanding of his future. How the short story will end I still have to think about – however I will try to remain as true to Auden’s tone and intent as he wrote ‘The Unknown Citizen’.                        Out of these three responses I hope to finally choose one with the following criteria in mind: financial constraints in undergoing the project, feasibility in terms of time and resources, overall impact on the intended target audience. On the whole, I believe these three responses will best communicate Auden’s poem on a more contemporary manner. While art mirrors life, great art transcends time and space. The truths Auden spoke of during his lifetime still ring true today and will continue to impact the future generations to come.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Prostitution Should be Legalized :: Argumentative Persuasive Prostitutes Essays
Prostitution Should be Legalized Prostitution is known as the oldest profession in the world, however, many states in the U.S. outlaw it. The textbook definition of prostitution is the "act or practice of engaging in sexual acts for money" ("Prostitution," Macmillan 805). Nevada is the first in the United States to legalize prostitution. Although the long term effects of legalized prostitution is uncertain, the short term effects have been economically beneficial. Prostitution should be legalized because not only could it financially benefit the country, but it could also reduce crime. There are many reasons why prostitution is illegal in 49 U.S. states today. First, and foremost, many people feel that prostitution should stay illegal in order to preserve morality. Parents do not want their children to grow up thinking that prostitution is acceptable. Worse yet, parents do not want to hear their children say, "When I grow up, I want to be a prostitute." Christianity also looks down upon prostitution because according to their beliefs, the act of sex is only to be done when a man and a women are in love and married. Monogamy is to be practiced in the marriage, and any violation of this is considered a sin. Another reason why the preservation of morality is so important is that people's morals shape the future of a nation. Many people feel that if prostitution is legalized, then its long term effects would be detrimental to the United States. The divorce rate in the United States peaked at an all time high in 1980 ("Marriage" 56). By the legalization of prostitution, this would allow room for husbands and wives to commit adultery. Thus, leading the marriage to a divorce. "The divorce rate has really increased over the centuries. In the U.S. today, the divorce rate is fifty percent of the U.S." (Holland 86). Second, prostitution is a great health risk to the U.S. because of the spread of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). A major concern about STDs is the spread of AIDS, which is currently a deadly STD because a cure has not been found for the disease. The transmission of STDs is already on the rise due to many uneducated teenagers having unprotected sex. In addition, most of theses teens are not going to a physician to be screened for STDs. Because of this, many curable STDs are going untreated and being spread throughout a community.
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton Essay
The House of Mirth is separated into two books of approximately equal length, with Book I having at least thirty more pages than the other. In the commencement of Book I, the central character, who goes by the name of Lily Bart is twenty-nine years old and gets acquainted with the fact that she is on the threshold of losing her influence to hang about in society by the desirable quality of her looks and charisma alone. She believes that getting married is her only way out. The itinerary of Book I describe Lily’s tribulations in accomplishing this goal. By the end, Lily has continued to exist after an attempted rape which nonetheless hurts her repute and causes her to be unable to find the high regard of Lawrence Selden and is desperately in liability. Book II, commences in Monte Carlo with additional and given up for lost scandal, moves to New York and additional debt. It ends in deficiency, lonesomeness, and an unintentional death that could without difficulty be called a suicide. Similarities The story presented by Edith Wharton is rather tragic. It is about a beautiful, high-spirited woman who is in dire need of getting over the manipulations of others and the extremely stern society around her. The only assets that the central character Lily has are her beauty and charisma. She is well-acquainted with the rules of the upper class New York society of 1905. Lily tells Lawrence that, â€Å"a girl must [get married] and a man if he chooses†. (Wharton, p. 165) Lily basically is totally dependant on her aunt for her financial expenses and believes that she should get married to a wealthy man as soon as possible. But, as she confesses, she always does â€Å"the right thing at the wrong time†. She is nearly married to about three different men who are pretty wealthy but she is not able to go ahead with it. She is in love with Lawrence, but considering the fact that he is not rich and has to work to make both ends meet, she does not even let herself imagine that she should marry him. She comprehends the susceptibility of her position she does not have any fortune of her own, and for that reason her reputation must be impeccable. The people that she is surrounded by have â€Å"minds like moral flypaper  they can forgive a woman anything but the loss of her good name. Unfortunately, Lily’s inherent honesty makes it impossible for her to realize the treachery and desperation around her. She makes some foolish choices: We resist the great temptations, but it is the little ones that eventually pull us down. †(The House of Mirth, p. 1). In both the movie and the book, perhaps her only mistake is that she ends up trusting all the wrong people. Because of this we can see in the movie and the novel that her reputation is looked down upon and she ends up owing a great deal of money to a man who misused her trust and made attempts to ruin her reputation. As is said, we witness in the movie that â€Å"by the time she is willing to accept the proposal of businessman Sim Rosedale (Anthony LaPaglia), he is no longer willing to offer her the position of wife, only mistress. Rosedale has a kind heart, and he likes Lily. But he is a businessman with ambitions of being fully accepted into society, and he can see that Lily is damaged goods. Perhaps her very willingness to accept him makes her less appealing†(The House of Mirth, p. 1). Lily realizes the sensitivity of her position in the society and she realizes that nothing she does would be right for her after she has been betrayed by nearly everyone and is shunned aside by her society. She now makes attempts in both the movie and the novel to support herself first as secretary/companion to a vulgar social-climber, then as an internee in a millinery shop. She makes one last exaggerated plea for help from her cousin, and also comprehends a drastic attempt at blackmail, but that is a â€Å"great temptation†she is able to resist. The movie definitely is a great adaptation of the novel written by the author with first-rate performances and extravagant details of that period. Edith Wharton’s 1905 â€Å"The House of Mirth,†apparently is a novel about early-20th century New York upper classes, and is really an outer-space story, and instinctively at least, the director Terence Davies seems to know it. In order to Wharton’s book to the display, Davies takes care to get all the accouterments right: the depressively sparkling balls and social gatherings of turn-of-the-century Manhattan society life, the faux-rustic lavishness of the nation state homes of the rich, the odd rules and regulations and subtexts prowling behind the way a woman might trip her delicately gloved hand into that of a man. In Wharton’s view, and in Davies’, it is an ambiance that is hospitable on the exterior but fastened with fatal gas, an accurate arrangement of molecules that looks for and finds and strangles the life out of foreign creatures, like Wharton’s great conqueror Lily Bart, who need air and brightness and love. It takes one beautiful alien to play Bart. Davies’ â€Å"The House of Mirth†is not anything like a science-fiction movie, for sure, apart from the way it uses ambiance to communicate a sneaking pastiness of claustrophobia and even danger. What is evident from the first frame, just like it is evident in the beginning of the novel by Wharton, is that Lily is a human being who just does not fit in this world. What is worst is that she herself believes and is convinced with this fact. The deception of the story, nevertheless, is that we are not in actuality sure about the origin of Lily; Wharton’s wrapping up is that there are no definable monetary, communities or devout divisions that are moderately right for her, and Davies’ movie, with all its miserable sophistication, incarcerates the real meaning of that peripatetic restiveness. A gorgeously beautiful but spinster woman of twenty-nine with deteriorating prediction, Lily has been raised to accept as true that luxury is exactly what she deserves. Hence, Lily lives further than her means, relying for the most part on the resentful contributions of her elderly aunt, Mrs. Peniston. All the lacking that Lily suffers because she does not have money, she makes up for in behavior of verbal communication and coquetry: she has the ability as well as the charm to turn any encounter into an enticing meeting. Nevertheless her game playing, as Wharton has written and as Anderson plays it, is not entrenched in heartlessness. It is more a particular kind of non-interventionist resourcefulness, such that her possible love interest and a little bit retribution Lawrence Selden are overwhelmed by it. â€Å"I always like to see what you’re doing,†he tells her only half-teasingly. â€Å"You’re such a wonderful spectacle. †(Wharton, p. 35) To keep herself buoyant economically, Lily is desperately in need of a husband, but she is disastrous in finding one due to the fact that, deep down, she knows she does not want one. She is most involved with Selden, a legal representative of self-effacing means who lives for books and fine art and a warm fire. But not even Selden is a sanctuary for her considering that he proves himself competent of devastating coldness. And after Lily unsuspectingly puts herself in a negotiative position with a married friend, Gus Trenor, she comes to realize that she will have to make her own money to support herself. The movie presents to us that Wharton’s book is not an assembling cry for women’s expressive and financial self-government. It is far more understated, and a lot less joyful, than that. But the narrative repetitively affirms the worth of that self-determination, exclusively by showing us how tantalizingly it is kept out of poor Lily’s reach. The movie incarcerates something of Wharton’s reticent tenderness and attractive rhythms in the way it sets Lily revolving on her unhurried spiral to calamity. The movie takes a few emancipations with the story, concentrating, for example, two of Wharton’s innovative characters into one. The movie â€Å"House of Mirth†is a dignified movie, sometimes too much so, moving with the momentum and sprightliness of a dowager aunt and the channel of communication, much of it taken straight from the novel is from time to time stiff and discomfited. But the movie does an unimpeachable job of screening to us, in the first half of the movie, both the mesmerizing comforts and the tediousness of the life Lily desires to, with its seamless drawing rooms and unnaturally effervescent parties. The second half is shadowy and more visually solemn, as Lily thrashes about to keep her existence together. But that pessimism makes it obvious that this less-glamorous continuation is not right for Lily, either. She can be considered an exotic bird, in poor condition for the filth and dirt of the everyday world but far too unexpected to be serving tea to rich, unintelligent gentlepeople. Lily, too contemporary, too fundamental and too beautiful, fits nowhere, in no detailed society, time or place (Zacharek, p. 1). Edith Wharton plots The House of Mirth on a sequence of meetings set in vibrantly distinct social settings. The first communal setting is Lawrence Selden’s residence at the Benedict and the convention is between him and Lily Bart. The second is the Trenors’ country house throughout a week-long party. In the pinnacle, Wharton shows with great power the sexual operation at the heart of the financial dependence of women. In the increasing action, Wharton sets up the rudiments of Lily Bart’s personality by showing her in stroke in a social situation which restrains her choices. In the lessening action, when Lily Bart has been evicted from the society that has prearranged her values, Wharton shows that Lily Bart is not ready to become accustomed to a dissimilar way of life. Lily Bart becomes a disastrous figure; trying with her imperfect moral possessions to live up to her intellect of what is right, even when it means facing impoverishment (Wharton, p. 25). Conclusion In the light of the above discussion we can hereby culminate that the movie and the novel namely The House of Mirth written by Edith Wharton has much in common.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Fear Of The Blue Essay - 1007 Words
Brooke Handley English 102 Mrs. W October 3, 2016 Fear of the Blue Although they may not be known personally, Alton Sterling, Nolan Ryan, and Philando Castile have become household names. They are three amongst many, that were unarmed and killed by the ones who are expected to â€Å"protect and serve.†Each lived in different states, each lived different lives, and each had different dreams, but their lives were cut short by the discretion of a Police Officer. The First Amendment allots people to have the freedom of speech. The Second Amendment allots people to bear arms. The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable search and seizure. One would think with all the rights given, people should be allowed to express their opinions, carry a registered gun, and not have to fathom the fact they may not survive after an encounter with Law Enforcement. Police brutality is on the rise, because many officers use their power unjustly, are not adequately trained, and are not held accountable for their actions. If a resolution is not made soon, an apocalypse maybe near. Police Officers are not adequately trained. There is no unified standard to becoming an Officer. Each precinct develops their own set of requirements and trainings based on the location, population, and need for their city. According to discoverpolicing.org the minimum requirements to be eligible for hire is, to prove U.S citizenship, be at least 18 years of age, have a high school diploma, a validShow MoreRelatedFear Of The Blue Essay2396 Words  | 10 PagesFear of the Blue Alton Sterling, Nolan Ryan, and Philando Castile; average people who are now household names because of their murders by the hands of those meant to â€Å"protect and serve†. They are three among many that were unarmed and killed by law enforcement. 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