In River of Earth we see conflict between Mother and Father. Father searches for work and mother wants to plant her roots with her immediate family. How are their actions in the first chapter influenced by the Appalachian mountain life?…
Sailormoon, the world renowned animated series, comes from the Japanese Shōjo manga, written and illustrated by female author Naoko Takeuchi. The main distinguishing feature of Shōjo manga is that it is specifically aimed at young female viewers and involves some form of (usually magical) female protagonist (Saito 143). Kumiko Saito, in her essay on Magical Girl Anime and the Challenges of Changing Gender Identities in Japanese Society, acknowledges that the Shōjo genre exhibits “various possibilities of power for both men and women”; however, she argues that these potentials are marginalized by “contradictory messages conveyed by metaphors of magic and transformation” (162). In this essay, I will explain the ways in which the internationally…
The epitome of society is symbolized by the Widow Douglass’s home. After all, it is there that Huck is forced to wear civilized clothing, eat and speak in a civilized manner, and act civilized in all possible ways. He runs away from this symbol of civilization to the freedom of the river. Then, of course, there is Jim, the symbol of all enslaved people in the South. He is downtrodden, looked down upon by all of the other characters in the book, and desperately seeking his freedom. In contrast to the rest of society, however, he is loyal and honest. Huck Finn, the protagonist of the book, contains an element of symbolism as well. He symbolizes the struggle between a person and his conscience, as well as between society and free-thinking. Throughout…
A common theme between all three pieces of literature is, things are not always as they appear. All these stories share the topic of stereotypes. In A&P, three girls that walk into the store are stereotyped for the way they are dressed and the class that they belong to. Sammy makes assumptions about their personalities just by looking at them. However, he changes his thoughts at the end, after the girls have been up to the check out counter, when he stands up for them after realizing that it was not right for them to be discriminated against because of their looks. In Cathedral the narrator does not want to meet his wife's blind friend because of the things he has heard about the blind in movies. By the end of the story he learns that what's…
The movie Crash is a very interesting and compelling movie that showed some social problems like racism and stereotypes that occur in everyday life. The movie starts off a day later from the present when a Det. Graham Waters is at a scene of a crime and just got a look at the victim which happen to be his own brother (revealed at the end of the movie). The movie then goes on to follow a variety of characters such as Det. Graham Waters, Sgt. John Ryan, Ria (Det. Waters’ partner), D.A. Rick Cabot and his wife Jean, Cameron Thayer a Hollywood director and his wife Christine, Anthony who steals cars with his friend Peter (who is Det. Waters’ brother), a Persian family, a Hispanic family, and officer Tom Hansen. The film goes on to show the experiences of racism and stereotypes these people endure over a two day period. The movie was very exciting and showed some social problems that still happen today. It went deep into the context of how people still…
Watership Down is an epic novel filled with adventure. Though the main characters are rabbits, the author depicts them in a very individual way that highlights their personalities while still keeping the novel believable. Two rabbits that have and especially big impact on the story are Hazel and El-ahrairah. Though Hazel is a runaway rabbit and El-ahrairah is a legend of power, both have many similarities which make them so significant in the story.…
A mystery only few can solve, but are women really as dangerous as they say they are? It’s hard to say “no” to beautiful and mysterious women, but it’s even harder to trust them. Why would such a young, innocent woman be mistrustful? In the movie, “The Maltese Falcon”, the question is who killed who? Why would they kill and when did they do it? A man named Sam Spade is looking for who killed his partner, Miles Archer, and Floyd. Bridget Shaughrassey was helping Sam look for who did it. The police think it’s Sam who killed Miles and Floyd, so they question him. On the search for the who killed them, Spade comes to find the Maltese falcon. The fat man Kasper opens it up and comes to realize it is fake. We then learn that Bridget Shaughrassey is the murderer.…
Honore De Balzac once said “Nature makes only dumb animals. We owe the fools to society.” In John Steinbeck’s novella Of Mice and Men, George and Lennie are two migrant farmers who dream of owning a ranch of their own, this is until Lennie, having a child's mind, but being a big strong guy, accidentally kills Curley’s wife, also killing their dream of owning a ranch. Lennie and George are portrayed as rabbits in Of Mice and Men because they follow along with the lower class blindly just like society desires them to, dreaming to change their path but never succeeding in this, like so many others.…
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an important novel that shows how the two worlds of Huck and Jim collide to bring out the problems of racism and slavery before the civil war. Huck was a young, naive boy who is oblivious to the outside world. Jim was a slave with a big heart who looked at the world in a whole different perspective. Throughout the journey together Huck and Jim’s relationship was shaken by the cold reality of racism and slavery, thus slowly opening Huck's eyes to the world around him and creating a new foundation for friendship. When Jim and Huck go on their journey outside of St.Petersburg, Missouri a whole new world was opened up to them, they saw the country like never before.…
After a decade of inactivity during the 1960s, the British Western subgenre reached its creative peak in the early 1970s, beginning with the release of Captain Apache (1971), produced and distributed by Benmar Productions of England and featuring Lee Van Cleef (High Noon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance) as the eponymous protagonist. While the decision to cast a white actor in the film’s lead role and have him apply red makeup to increase his authenticity would be considered exploitative and harmful by contemporary standards, Captain Apache is an incredibly atypical character for a western and affirms few of the cultural stereotypes associated with the Native race. For example, he is neither a ferocious white-hating warrior nor a noble savage…
In Harper Lee’s, full name Nelle Lee’s, novel, To Kill A Mockingbird, published in 1960, there are many instances where characters challenge stereotypes or work to help defy them. Jem, for instance, is a character who does not act how a typical boy is supposed to, challenge the stereotypes of males. Another example is Atticus, a lawyer and the father of the narrator. Lastly, Boo Radley, a man prejudged by the entire town, ends up being the biggest hero in Harper Lee’s book. In summary, Jem, Atticus, and Boo Radley are all people who contribute to the novel’s theme of challenge stereotypes and prejudice.…
In his short story, 'The Open Boat,' Stephen Crane displays to us a universe completely indifferent to the affairs of humankind; we live in an apathetic world, in which man has to fight and struggle to live. The characters illustrated in the story come face-to-face with this indifference and all are nearly overcome by nature's lack of concern with humanity. The survivors are alive primarily through determination and cooperation. We as human are alive because our constant struggles to co-exist in this universe. Crane illustrates to readers how we are all in an endless battle for our life in a world that doesn’t seem to care for us, as much as we care for ourselves.…
Society no matter where or regarding what is filled with stereotypes. Certain areas of the world are pinned for their negativities and hinder the characters of the people who live in those areas. Harlem is an example of that. It is a cultured city with many different subcultures from that of drugs, to artists, and even fashion. Harlem isn't all dark and dangerous, but it is also full of life and culture. Living in the city automatically associates a person with its negative subcultures. And people struggle to find their own identity outside of what society assumes. In Sonny's blues, James Baldwin uses society stereotypes of the black community to portray Sonny's struggling addiction, suffering from his decisions, his estranged relationships with his family, and his passion for music, to show Sonny's struggle for identity in society.…
Stereotypes are labels put on people that are often harmful and almost always based on a trait that person has that they can’t control, usually relating to appearance. In To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The three biggest stereotypes that characters face are the stereotype of women, poor white families, and of course, people of color, particularly males.…
As a kid growing up, I gathered quite the collection of Disney movies on VHS, as well as a good deal of “hand-me-down” movies from my older siblings. When I say hand-me-down, I mean any movie collected before 1994 that were originally bought for my siblings, but kept for me. Among this box of Disney gold was the classic 1940’s film, Dumbo. The movie Dumbo is about a young circus elephant named Jumbo Jr., who was cruelly nicknamed Dumbo by four other elephants. He is ridiculed and picked on for his comically large ears, however those who mocked him are stunned into silence once they see his ears actually give him the ability to fly. By flapping his ears like wings, Dumbo is able to (literally) rise above the hate and show everyone what he is…