Power can be represented on many different levels from the obvious, such as electricity, to the power of an individual to inspire others through speech. Many people over time have used the power of speech to spread their message and convey their beliefs across an audience in the act to influence them.
Martin Luther King (one of the most successful public speakers in history) was considered a powerful man. He used the power of speech to convey his message of peace and equality for all African-American people to the whole of the USA and since then has been an icon of human rights. By using the power of speech he has achieved honours such as the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in helping put an end to racial segregation and discrimination. …show more content…
However, Power isn’t always used in a positive way, it can be used in a negative ways also, such as the way Hitler did during his reign, by using the power of fear to get his demands across.
No one was game enough to stop him or even disagree because of the fear of what could and would happen if they were to speak or act out against him.
Many other examples of power are given in the movie Freedom Writers. Freedom Writers is set between 1992 through to1995 in Los Angeles, America in a high school where an integration program has been put in place, which causes the students to break off into their own racial
groups.
If a member of a certain racial group enters another groups territory a fight will most likely be the outcome. This happens in the movie and it ends in a brawl involving the whole school.
A class of students known as the “unteachables” are assigned a new teacher who is determined to help the students achieve. The students refuse to cooperate until one lesson their teacher finds a racist drawing of one of her students and uses it to teach them about the Holocaust. She gradually begins to earn their trust and buys them scrap books to record their diaries, in which they talk about their experiences of being abused, seeing their friends die, and being evicted.
Determined to help her students, she takes two part-time jobs to pay for more books and spends more time at school. Her students start to behave with respect and learn more. The teacher is an example of power as she shows the power to change the students perspectives on life and give them the belief that they can achieve thus making them better people. The students are also examples of power as they show the power to change themselves and cooperate with the teacher and with eachother.
In the movie there are a lot of things that set the mood and give you an insight in the students thoughts. During the movie, while the students are writing in their diaries they have an iner-monolouge, explaining what they are writing.
Power in its forms, mental, physical and natural is obviously very strong and can do as much good as it can do bad. Power can be used in many circumstances, from the physical form of electricity to the power you can have over someone by using speech and fear. It can be used both positively and negatively but overall it is regarded as a form of control.
Thankyou.