« While trying to reach their destinations the characters face many obstacles including a death like experience like drowning or falling asleep with the ...» Document abstract
$2.95
3 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
12/12/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 0 times
SummaryJoseph Campbell’s Hero Cycle is an idea that anyone can relate to and be able to recognize. There are many stories throughout time that use this in their composition. Stories such as “Little Red Riding Hood” and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz format their structure around it. George Lucas’ Star Wars Trilogy also uses it as the basis of its story. The hero cycle is something that we not only read about, but we experience it in our everyday lives as well. In fiction it is expressed more unrealistically then in reality but both topics still share a common bond. We will discuss the elements of the cycle, how they appear in dozens of stories and tales, and how it finds its way into our everyday lives.
« She is the embodiment of innocence; her hair is long, most likely un-cut since birth, her fair face unadorned by make-up, and she stares at the audience with ...» Document abstract
$2.95
3 word format
Language : english
literature
presentation
date published
09/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
requested 1 times
SummaryGender and sexuality are very difficult concepts to define in our post-modern age. To begin with, the term is outdated to fit the social norms of today: attraction lies anywhere and is not confined to ‘heterosexual love’ between a man and a woman. Gay, lesbian and bi-sexual are terms used to describe the previously neglected aspects of sexuality. Gender bending sexual androgyny used to be thought of as repulsive, but as Baz Luhrmann tells us, is all the more coveted in our liberalism of the present. As well, the more androgynous you are – in how you look and how you love – the more attractive you are; a signature of sexuality in the forever reviving pop-culture. As Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet uses every aspect of pop-culture, from music to fashion to actors to create a post-modern Verona, he also utilizes androgynous sexuality in various characters. Yet, not to alienate any audience member, Luhrmann elucidates all varied counterparts of gender and sexuality: from femininity to masculinity; from heterosexuality to homosexuality and homosociality. He throws everything that is pop-culture at us in the film, and as he shows in the varied characters, gender-bending sexuality is integral to our time and age.
Table of Contents- Gender and sexuality are very difficult concepts to define in our post-modern age.
- Before tackling the more difficult aspects of Luhrmann's film, it is important to examine the heterosexual aspects to provide a picture of comparison and contrast.
- If Benvolio personifies heterosexual masculinity, then Juliet and her mother, Lady Capulet, depict that of heterosexual femininity.
- On the opposite end of the spectrum lies Lady Capulet. If Juliet depicts feminine chastity, then Lady Capulet depicts that of a whore.
- So far there seems to be a majority of heterosexual content in Luhrmann's film.
- Sycamore Grove, before the Capulet party, is the scene that puts an inquisitive twist to Romeo and Mercutio's relationship.
- Gender and sexuality exist as one. For you cannot represent one without the other.
- Pop-culture is everywhere in the film, and instead of resting a cheap thesis on the modern generation showcasing pop-culture familiarity, Luhrmann expresses an intimate understanding of what gender and sexuality mean in this day and age.
« to overcome obstacles. . The story takes a complete about-face when Lanval is suddenly stricken with good luck. . Because Lanval ...» Document abstract
$3.95
4 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
06/09/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 1 times
SummaryLife is full of obstacles – there is no doubt about it. Deciphering why people have certain obstacles and how they can overcome such obstacles is often just as burdening as the obstacles themselves. It is evident everywhere that people are struggling with their obstacles. From books, to movies, to everyday interaction, people are constantly being challenged to overcome. Marie De France’s “Lanval,” the hard life of an underprivileged child, and a CBS sitcom all relate this idea, that life is full of obstacles.
Table of Contents- De France's 'Lanval' is a literary example of the need to overcome obstacles.
- The story takes a complete about-face when Lanval is suddenly stricken with good luck.
- Because Lanval vowed to keep their relationship a secret, his lover will not respond to his desperate cries for her help
- This same theme can be applied to the real world. All people are faced with obstacles at some point in their lives
- His employer claims that his business wouldn't survive if it weren't for this guy
- As obstacles are evident in 'Lanval' and in Roger's helpless life, obstacles are also part of daily entertainment on television
- Greg is initially looked at as the bad guy.
- The fact that all people are affected by life's obstacles is widely known and blatantly clear
- The dilemma over who has it worse between Jimmy and Greg is also Greg's problem.
« All of his characters face the daily trials of unsatisfying jobs, emotional isolation, and violent family members, and their stale hopes of escape and ...» Document abstract
$5.95
6 word format
Language : english
literature
presentation
date published
24/06/2008
review : not yet assessed
level : General public
requested 0 times
SummaryIn his first novel, a collection of short stories meant to express the paralytic nature of turn-of-the-century Dublin, James Joyce establishes an image of the Irish urban center as a degenerate bed of unhappiness, deprivation, depression, and imprisonment. All of his characters face the daily trials of unsatisfying jobs, emotional isolation, and violent family members, and their stale hopes of escape and empowerment are unable to combat the dreary realities of Dublin life. Trapped in a world not of their own making, these individuals are consumed with loss, frustration, and failure, driven to drink and violence, the result of which being that they lose their capacity to effectively connect with one another, and so are forced to exist in a kind of emotional vacuum. It seems particularly important to Joyce to illustrate the inadequacies of love and marriage to ameliorate the lives of his characters, despite the dreams they have and the efforts they make to use love and marriage to better themselves. No relationship in the book succeeds in expressing that idealized bliss of marital status, and there are only brief moments when any of the couples in Dubliners manage to maintain even a moderate amount of happiness together. Joyce wastes no opportunity to demonstrate yet again the abuse, both verbal and physical, and mutual dislike so common in his Irish families, and demands that the reader acknowledge the unceasing cycle of victimization and failed escape that his characters face. From the youthful infatuation so bitterly dashed in “Araby” to the destructive truth of past love revealed in “The Dead,” no relationship is free from pain and suffering. Dubliners expresses an evolution of love which progresses from innocent infatuation, frustrated by immobility, to the onset of marriage as escape from family, poverty, and mundanity, to the ultimate realization that marriage is unable to solve the problems of its participants because love does not endure, and even if it did, Joyce seems to say, the problematic realities of life are too stable, too concrete to be destroyed by the tender emotion of love
Table of Contents- Dubliners expresses an evolution of love which progresses from innocent infatuation.
- One reason why Dublin's emotional life is so stunted - adults are already too scarred from youthful encounters.
- The development of romance in Dubliners.
- The idea of actually leaving Dublin, miserable though it is for Eveline is too great a departure from life as she knows it.
- Her plan is foolproof, but partly because neither her daughter nor Mr. Doran are fighting it.
- Lily's severe disillusionment about love and marriage may be a foreshadowing of difficulties to come for the happy couple.
« While radio in Madagascar is known for its integrity, journalists still face obstacles. . Radio Don Bosco is a nationwide Catholic FM station.. ...» Document abstract
$2.95
3 word format
Language : english
political science
presentation
date published
01/05/2008
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 0 times
SummaryIn independent Madagascar, while citizens celebrate a free media system, their simultaneous struggle for media access puts them at great disadvantage. Formerly a French colony, Madagascar has only had its independence for several decades, little time to build an effective media and communication system. From government-run and privately owned radio and television to the massive telecommunications depreciation in the 1980s, Madagascar has had to fight to compete in the global arena. Throughout the 1990s, the telecommunications industry was able to recover, and in the past few years, new radio stations have been established (CIA). Still, Madagascar is one of the poorest nations in the world, making it difficult to compete equally with the West (Internews 5).
Table of Contents- Madagascar was a French colony until 1960 when independence was restored.
- Recently, independent station Radio Say was forced to shut down after 'broadcasting false news.
- While radio in Madagascar is known for its integrity, journalists still face obstacles.
- Radio Don Bosco is a nationwide Catholic FM station.
- Telephone and Internet access is sparse and newspaper delivery can take days.
- Madagascar, with its lush jungles and diverse wildlife population, is literally an island to itself.
« explains his morning routine, which is not only his validation of self but also his instructions, laws, on what it means to be fashionable: "If my face is a ...» Document abstract
$2.95
3 word format
Language : english
film studies
term papers
date published
18/08/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 2 times
SummaryJacques Lacan’s description of the Other is that which gazes on you or exerts power on you, yet does not truly exist; the Other is an imagined gaze that is constantly looking over you (Willemen, 216). In the film American Psycho (2000), screenwriter and director Mary Harron personifies the Lacanian Other with serial-killer Patrick Bateman. The Bateman character is an embodiment of the Other in that he is represented as a dead eye that continuously emits the intradiegetic Lacanian gaze (in various forms) on everyone around him.
Table of Contents- Throughout American Psycho, Bateman personifies three main qualities of the Other
- But the tone of Bateman's speech sounds indifferent, and to the viewer and Bateman's friends it is an ironic lecture
- Bateman's gaze is evident during the scene in which he has lunch with Detective Kimball
- Laura Mulvey notes that the look cast by the spectator can be in fascination with the image of like, identifying with this ideal ego, and thus, the spectator can gain control and possession of the desired object within the diegesis
- Bateman continues to let Paul Allen refer to him as Marcus Halberstrand rather than confront Paul Allen about his error
« the lesson material, like the claim that violence is exclusively a male problem versus a human problem, are responsible for the oppression women face every day ...» Document abstract
$9.95
12 word format
Language : english
social sciences
school essay
date published
19/10/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 10 times
SummaryOn June 28, 1998, Ally McBeal graced the cover of Time magazine; not in the name of television or Hollywood or fashion, but in the name of feminism. According to The American Century Dictionary, feminism is the advocacy of women’s rights and sexual equality. So how does an upper-class woman who complains about her weight and puts dating before all else qualify as a feminist? Simple: in the misdirected world of the modern women’s movement, Ally McBeal is as much an icon of feminism as the women who shared the cover with her, women like Susan B. Anthony and Betty Friedan, two of the most celebrated founding mothers of feminism. The prior successes of the movement have been overshadowed by these new, ludicrous ideals and haphazard ventures into the mainstream media. Feminism, which at is core strives for a higher quality of life, is one of the main opponents of progress in the United States. As necessary as the feminism was in the past, its continuing presence is completely counterproductive in today’s society.
Table of Contents- Introduction
- Feminism as a successful philosophy
- First wave feminism and the right to vote
- Second wave feminism for equality in the work force
- Second wave feminism for equality in education
- Third wave feminism for women's choice
- Feminism as an unsuccessful philosophy
- Backfire of feminism's successes
- Reasons behind the backfire of feminism's success
- Feminism as an untruthful philosophy
- Feminism as an anti-family philosophy
- Feminism as an anti-gay philosophy
- Lesbians a threat to feminist movement
- Feminists a threat to lesbian movement
- Lesbianism assumed to be a feminist tool
- Feminism as an exploited philosophy
- Feminism in music
- Feminism in television and theater
- Feminism in pornography
- Conclusion
« within his culture, a constant reminder of his complacency, and Okonkwo, the epitome of stoicism, carried much the same look on his face, especially after the ...» Document abstract
$3.95
4 word format
Language : english
literature
school essay
date published
17/12/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 0 times
SummaryChinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the definitive post-colonial, African novel, focuses on a character who is in constant struggle with his tribe and with himself. Okonkwo, a purveyor of masculinity in his society, has many reasons for his actions in the novel. The continuing cultural violence in the novel and within the culture (often started and ended by Okonkwo), some argue, is inherent in the contradictions of the Igbo culture (Hoegberg, 69-77). Okonkwo’s actions, as well as the actions of others in the novel, explain a culture very sacred to Achebe, and through Okonkwo’s various actions and thoughts throughout the novel, the culture seems both precious and brutal, cultural relativism aside. Okonkwo is a character whose chi is in constant conflict, and Okonkwo himself is in constant conflict with himself over the masculinity, overall violence demanded by his honor based Igbo culture, and his relationship with his father.
« homoeroticism. This speech causes a profound effect upon young Dorian; his face, as Basil is painting him, becomes transfigured. ...» Document abstract
$3.95
4 word format
Language : english
literature
book review
date published
08/08/2007
review : not yet assessed
level : Advanced
requested 3 times
Summary“What if someone wrote a novel about homosexuality and no body [sic] came?” Ed Cohen writes of Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (75). Actually, at the time the book was written, the term “homosexuality” was nonexistent. Wilde, himself, became one of the leaders of the movement that defined homosexuality. Oscar Wilde, one of the most (in)famous homosexuals of the nineteenth century, portrays through the three main characters in Dorian Gray, the difficulty of coping with the life of secrecy that unavoidably went hand in hand with being a homosexual male in nineteenth century England.
Table of Contents- The Picture of Dorian Gray most likely reflects Wilde's own feelings and experiences regarding society's perception and treatment of homosexuality
- Obviously, Wilde was well aware of his society's homophobia, but perhaps he did not know exactly what he was up against
- Lord Henry Watton theorizes about indulging in one's passions but never actually does
- As the title suggests, the plot of Dorian Gray revolves around a picture that is painted of Dorian by Basil Hallward
- On the other hand, Wotton's massive influence over Dorian does lead the latter to begin to investigate his own desires
- Sensual descriptions such as the previous one, although shocking to the nineteenth century public, are quite prevalent in the novel.
- Like Oscar Wilde himself, Dorian Gray does not hold that critical distance from his passions that is so necessary to avoiding the dangerous consequences that he subsequently experiences
knowledge network
Sort by
Subject :
Type :
Extension :
Language :
Size :