their work. She presents hers views on situational practice through the use of the history…
Only after Ying-ying realizes that she has passed on her passivity and fatalism to her daughter Lena does she take any initiative to change. Seeing her daughter in an unhappy marriage, she urges her to take control. She tells Lena her story for the first time, hoping that she might learn from her mother’s own failure to take initiative and instead come to express her thoughts and feelings. Lena, too, was born in the year of the Tiger, and Ying-ying hopes that her daughter can live up to their common horoscope in a way that she herself failed to do. Moreover, in this belief in astrology Ying-ying finds a sort of positive counterpart to her earlier, debilitating superstitions and fatalism, for it is a belief not in the inevitability of external events but in the power of an internal quality.…
This text provides a new way of examining ourselves, our city and the values that dominate our ideology…
Being a mother in itself is already a difficult task to take on. However, if you're like Theresa Allison, being a black woman raising a black son in South Central Los Angeles is near impossible. Theresa is introduced in “The Territory” section in the book “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” as the founder of Mother's Reclaiming Our Children, an organization that she created to call a truce between gangs in her area and help protect other young men from the Los Angeles Police Department officers who abuse their authority. Theresa is a character that contains a lot of courage, but after her son is arrested, her strength and faith begins to dwindle.…
In Ray Bradbury’s “The Illustrated Man,” Bradbury writes a series of short science-fictional stories. While all of these stories take place in different worlds such as Venus, Mars, and Earth, all of them convey a different message. Bradbury takes his fictional writings and makes them real for his readers. He skillfully does this by tying the stories within, “The Illustrated Man,” to controversial issues being faced in America at that period in time. There are two stories in particular that exhibit Bradbury’s knack of bringing contentious issues to light: The Concrete Mixer and The Veldt. Bradbury effectively uses literary devices in The Concrete Mixer and The Veldt to secretly critique…
In today’s modern American society, unemployment rates soar at an all time high. America faces a recession the likes of which haven’t been seen since the early 1930’s during a little stint known as the Great Depression. There are many who feel that the current recession will have a huge impact on the success of the future for America as a world super power, that the potential America once had to be an everlasting force is coming to a close. Jack Womack illustrates in the novel Random Acts of Senseless Violence the possible dystopian outcome America is headed for. Womack uses the novel as a platform to express what he feels is the impending fate of major cities…
Miss Emily Grierson, the main character in A Rose For Emily, was so obviously insane that the main question is not if she is insane, but how. Of all the factors that should be taken into account and all the various manifestations of insanity she could have presented, there are some particular aspects of her behavior hold more certainty than others. The fact that nearly all of her life was lived privately, unviewed by anyone who could speak of it, the only knowledge of her behavior comes from her rare interactions with the townspeople of Jefferson. Having lived with only a corpse for company for more than forty years, almost all of her behaviors that were seen by the public were erratic, at the least. With insanity exhibited by her great aunt…
The sun hung from the middle of the sky and seemed to almost liquefy the city below. The street reflected the heat like a tanning mirror placed beneath you. A car alarm echoed throughout the wide block before Bank of the West – an average looking bank painted tan with horizontal architecture that swept up the front of the structure. Two bullet holes plastered the echoing car like stickers placed meticulously on a movie set. Steam seeped from the engine block through the cracks of the hood and out into the blistering air, evaporating almost instantly in the blaze. A group of firemen detached the battery and doused the engine of the car with water, sending even more steam once again into the heated air. News reporters stood in front of bulky white vans, ducking the heat under sidewalk trees and overhangs from neighboring buildings. A bulky group of local citizens crowded behind police barriers surrounding the bank in an extensive ring. The barriers held back the murmuring crowd as chatter about what had happened drifted between their ears. An abundance of police officers stood around silently like mutes with sweat dripping from their brows, waiting for the detectives to finish and vacate the scene so they could do the…
Scott has intended the dehumanised dystopic setting of Los Angeles 2019 to represent our potential existence if we should let technology get out of control. The establishing mis-en-scene of the panoramic long shots of flames spewing out from towers against the dark horizon, together with the haunting synthetic pulses of the Vangelis sountrack generates fear for what our society may come to be. The multiple low angle shot of the megalopolis of Tyrell Corp highlights its dominance over its bankrupts and lifeless surroundings. This majestic megalopolis of Tyrell Corp looms over the city which becomes a metaphor for technology’s domination over society, serving as negative connotations to society. It is clear that Scott had intended that ‘Blade Runner’ is a warning of our technological progression in…
Author Bruce Norris wrote the play “Clybourne Park” in response to the play “A Raisin in the Sun” written by author Lorraine Hansberry. It interprets fictional events set before and after the Hansberry play and is roughly based on historical events primarily focused in the city of Chicago. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, it is a provocative new play about the volatile combination of race and real estate. This is the first piece so far this semester that was written in the current state and time that we live in. while the stakes have changed over the years, the debate remains strikingly similar as neighbors wage a horrifying pitched battle over territory and legacy that reveals just how far our ideas about race and gentrification have evolved—or, have they? This Is one of the key questions yesterday’s group presented for discussion after their presentation.…
The mayoral election we see in The Last Hurrah is not dissimilar to the presidential election we have just recently witnessed. Despite being written in 1956, this novel relates very well to this class, myself as a millennial and new voter, and shows political precedence for our current political situation. The change in political style and perspectives shown in The Last Hurrah, in my opinion, ties in very closely to one of the biggest reasons Donald Trump is our current President-elect. Eight years ago Barack Obama ran on a platform of change and for the last eight years and decades prior, the American public has watched politician after politician make empty promises in exchange for political support as they vie for the presidency. Much like Frank Skeffington who had been a politician for decades, Hillary Clinton has long been involved in politics. She is a former first lady to President Bill Clinton, and a member of the Obama administration. Despite the change she would have brought by being the first female president, to many she represented an extension of the current administration and a continuation of greedy politicians running for President. Having been exempt from the political sphere prior to this election, Donald Trump embodied a new perspective on politics, similar to Kevin McCluskey, and in my opinion this secured his position from the…
As protagonist Katniss Everdeen reflects on her childhood, she shares a time whereby she ‘scared (her) mother to death, (with) the things (she) would blurt out about District 12, about the people who rule our country, Panem, from the far-off city called the “Capitol”(Pg. 6). Whereas Collins fosters the idea of containment in restricting its civilians, Burger presents a future Chicago in which all its citizens are orchestrated into ‘factions,’ responsible…
When reminiscing about his time in New York, Changez remembers the “cosmopolitan nature” of the city displayed before 9/11, and what America turned it into after 9/11.…
dystopian present the plot, in itself, is simple. In a totalitarian version of the United States…
Through the eyes of medical school lecturer Dr. Robert Laing, we see how minor altercations between floors quickly escalate into anarchy, harsh violence, rape, and murder. Laing is eventually dragged into the lifestyle of the tower. Since everything for essential living is located within the tower, such as shops and swimming pools, Dr. Laing has no need to leave the building other than going to work. This entrapment in the building of many residents is the cause of this anarchic activity. The building is a small vertical city (Ballard 15).…