Love is a Bitch in Amores Perros Term Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Love is a Bitch in Amores Perros - Term Paper Example The film is not a simplistic critique of the Mexican society. Rather it is a revelation of the human nature with all its frailties, speedily accentuated by the rapid social changes and a continual dilution of social values. Amores Perros depicts the darker side of the contemporary Mexican society and nudges the viewers to reflect on its disturbing and unjust dynamics. The film is set in the modern day Mexico City. The universal appeal of the film could be attributed to its illustrative depiction of the concepts of broken families and betrayal, the themes which tend to be common to most of the modern day cultures, societies and civilizations (Flynn 35). The selfish and callous tendencies of the characters in the movie give something to relate to almost all its contemporary viewers, irrespective of the place or country which they live in. The pain of Mexico City as shown in the film is the inevitable plight of modern societies. Story Amores Perros is a film woven around the stories of three characters that are Octavio, Daniel and El Chivo, which in a way represent a microcosm of the contemporary, middle class, Mexican domestic scene. The family life of all the three characters is shown to have a common thread of deception running through them. Octavio loves his sister-in-law Susana. He earns money by dabbling in illegal dog fighting. Daniel jilts his wife and daughter, to get into a relationship with a famous model Valeria. El Chivo fails to share a normal family life with his daughter Maru because of being behind bars. In the entire three stories one comes across disruption of family relationships, betrayal of intimacy and trust and flaunting of long cherished social and domestic values. The central characters in the story are depicted as trying to eke out a better life for themselves, but albeit through questionable and unconventional means. The story raises many questions as to whether the unscrupulousness of the three central characters is the strictly person al marrow of their bones or are their lives helplessly simmering in the larger boiling pot of an age and times where achievement is about money only, beauty is simply about looks and family life is about convenience, opportunism and shallowness? The characters in the movie discernibly evince a stark disassociation and variance between feeling and thought, success and honesty, intimacy and fidelity and end and means, which strikingly seem alright and normal in the surrounding social landscape (Podalsky, 148). This seeming normalcy of the things is what is abnormal and pervert. Class Depictions and Related Social Themes In the film, the lower middle class is depicted as being limited and constrained by self adopted and socially reinforced stereotypes, which glorify acquisition, street smartness and unscrupulousness. In such a socio-economic scenario, all the roads seem to lead to an idea of success that is also a dead end in itself. It endows its adherents with all the promised goodie s, yet mercilessly snatches much that is simple, accessible and harmless. The ghetto life in the contemporary Mexico is shown as being marred by preexisting perceptions, where the individuals brazenly feel justified and alright to act out the roles that are valued and encouraged by their social ambience. It is a male dominated society where the young women are both the subject and object of raw lust, deserving a high monetary,

Integrate a quote with a signal phrase that precedes the quote. Essay Example for Free

Integrate a quote with a signal phrase that precedes the quote. Essay In his article â€Å"A Matter of Degrees,† Clive Crook illustrates the importance of literacy today: â€Å"Illiteracy has always cut people off from the possibility of a prosperous life, and from full civil engagement†¦ Three out of ten seniors in public high school still fail to reach the basic-literacy standard† (30). 2. Integrate a quote with a signal phrase that interrupts the quote. â€Å"So much about today’s adult industry seems like an undeft parody of Hollywood and the nation writ large,† says David Foster Wallace in the essay â€Å"Big Red Son,† describing the evolution of adult film stars. â€Å"†¦The gynecologically explicit sexuality of Jenna [Jameson], Jasmin [St. Claire], et al. seems more than anything like a Mad magazine spoof of the â€Å"smoldering† sexuality of Sharon Stone and Madonna and so many other mainstream iconettes† (29-30). 3. Integrate a quote with a signal phrase that follows the quote. â€Å"I love the Cup because it stripped away all the things about professional sports that Ive come to despise†¦ The World Cup just bangs it out: Two cool national anthems, two 45-minute halves, a few minutes of extra time and usually were done. Everything flies by. Everything means something. Its the single best sporting event we have by these four measures: efficiency, significance, historical context and truly meaningful/memorable/exciting moments,† says Bill Simmons of ESPN. com in â€Å"Bill Simmons: World Cup 20 Questions,† explaining some of the virtues of the international soccer tournament. Works Cited Crook, Clive. A Matter of Degrees. The Atlantic Monthly Nov. 2006: 28-30. Academic Search Premier. Web. 5 July 2010. Simmons, Bill. Bill Simmons: World Cups 20 Questions ESPN. ESPN: The Worldwide Leader In Sports. ESPN Internet Ventures, 1 July 2010. Web. 05 July 2010. Wallace, David Foster. Big Red Son. Consider the Lobster and Other Essays. New York: Little, Brown, 2006. 3-50. Print.

Reflective Essay of the Family

Reflective Essay of the Family Write a short autobiographical piece relating to the theories and concepts discussed in the first half of the course. How might parts of your own or your familys life observe, illuminate or be illuminated by the theories and concepts discussed in weeks 1-5 of the course? I was born in Italy and resided there till the age of twenty-eight. I lived in a regional town of around forty-thousand inhabitants with limited cultural opportunities. I studied for a baccalaureate in business and entered the working environment as a news cameraman. In Italy, this would be the equivalent of a blue-collar worker. After having been working for ten years I moved to London and commenced employment as a sales and account manager in I.T. This job required intellectual application to office administration and high degrees of interpersonal relations, combined with knowledge of the product and its application within the marketplace. My increased earnings allowed me to purchase a home for the first time. Access to cultural opportunities in London has broadened my knowledge and understanding of the arts. London has allowed me to realise my potential to become a professional and commence this process by undertaking a history degree. My experience of London has been one of inqui ry and integration within a tolerant and multicultural environment. I will now seek to observe and to illuminate by application to my life some of the concepts and theories discussed in the first half of the course. Conventional wisdom has redefined the social structure of society by cataloguing the population into three classes: the rich, the middle class and the poor. This is very likely to represent the current classification in Italy. Therefore, the distribution of income is the main factor why classes still exist through the buying and selling of labour.[1] In Italy, I would have been classified as being a member of the poor class. Italy is characterised by a stark division between highly industrialised districts and underdeveloped areas of peasant farming. However, it is not always the case that farmers are positioned in a lower economic class than those of white-collar workers. For instance, and from my own experience, Italian farmers may be economically better-off than public servants because of the potential to sell their produce in their ow n shops and to secure a higher income. Accordingly, their economic capital is directly converted in the form of property rights and tangible assets such as houses and cars. [2] By relocating to London my observable classification within a conventional understanding of class remained unchanged because I could only sell my skills and labour. Now applying Bourdieus frameworks for class in Italy, I would have been considered as having a low economic capital. However, Bourdieus concept of cultural and social capitals applied to my employment as a news cameraman demonstrates an enrichment of both those capitals due to the enlargement of my social contacts. It could be claimed that I had found the perfect fit and I was floating like a fish in water: my habitus, made up of layering built up by experiences grounded in my body and mind, had met a social world of which it is the product,[3] therefore, I was experiencing the world pleasantly and I was in my comfort zone. Being a newcomer in London brought about the experience of a downward shift on all my capitals. Work, education and social networks had to be rebuilt. When someone steps out of the comfort zone it is likely to resemble a fish out of water, a suffused sense of inadequacy.[4] The new environment has offered me opportunities to improve my education and expand my social contacts. Bourdieu suggests that it is under conditions of hysteresis[5] when you are a fish out of water that great changes can occur. The hysteresis effect might provide an explanation of how I can make sense of my new environment based on my habitus, and on my capacity to decode parallels between the previous context and the new one. The seven classes of the Great British Class Survey of 2013 are built upon the development of certain sectors of economic activity, such as the technical middle class and the new affluent workers.[6] In Italy I would have been included in the traditional working class. Using the Survey Calculator twice and ending up in two different classes, it was evident that I provided the same social and cultural capitals and only modified my income. Firstly, when I used to work as an account manager, I was assigned to the group of Established middle class, secondly, now that I am a student, I fall within the Traditional working class. Mike Savage, one of the promoters and researchers of the survey, in his BBC Radio 4 interview, has stated that the study has moved away from the occupational classes.[7] This would not be the case, in fact as the results of my two surveys demonstrate, it does not take into consideration cultural and social capitals. I also agree with Colin Mills, lecturer in sociol ogy at Nuffield College Oxford, that the nature of the BBC sample is somewhat flawed: the 160.000 respondents of the online survey are most likely to be more educated and in highly paid jobs, whereas the respondents of the face-to-face research of 1000 people are more varied and allowed to build more classes[8]. It can be claimed that the findings of the BBC survey come from the information provided by the smaller research, hence the internet survey plays almost no role in defining these categories and the class I fall in. It can be clearly observed that, by applying class theories to my own life, only one class theory demonstrates any depth of analysis with regards to social and cultural aspects, namely the one developed by Bourdieu. By moving from Italy to London, my class has shifted upwards in all my three capitals. References [1] https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007 [accessed on 20th January 2017] [2] Pierre, Bourdieu, The Forms of Capital, in John Richardson (ed.), Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, (New York, 1986),p.243 [3] Pierre, Bourdieu and LoiÃÅ'ˆc J. D., Wacquant, An invitation to reflexive sociology, (Cambridge, 1992),p.127 [4] Diane, Reay, Gill, Crozier and John, Clayton, (2010) Fitting in or standing out: working-class students in UK higher education, British Educational Research Journal 32(1),p.11 [5] Pierre, Bourdieu, Outline of a theory of practice, trans. Richard Nice, (Cambridge, 1977),p.78 [6] Mike, Savage et al., A new model of social class? Findings from the BBCs Great British Class Survey experiment, Sociology 47(2), p. 230 [7] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07gg1kb [8] Ibid.

LeBlanc’s Analysis of Sexuality in Chopin’s The Awakening Essay

LeBlanc’s Analysis of Sexuality in Chopin’s The Awakening Definitions are tricky things. Such is the conclusion of Ross C. Murfin in his attempts to spell out the major literary theories discussed in our text: "attempts to highlight the difference between feminist and gender criticism are inevitably prone to reductive overgeneralization and occasional distortion"(footnote p.226). Such is the conclusion of gender theorists in general in their pursuit of critiquing the traditional definitions of male/ female, masculine/ feminine, and heterosexual/ homosexual. Such is my conclusion in reading Elizabeth LeBlanc's attempts at defining and utilizing the notion of the "metaphorical lesbian" in her analysis of Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Tricky as they may be, however, definitions, at least in our efforts to formulate them, constitute our lives, our thought processes, and our discourse: Who are we? What is our purpose? What does it all mean? With this in mind, what are we to make of the "metaphorical lesbian" or of the "real" lesbian? Although I f ound LeBlanc's essay to be exceptionally interesting in its formulations and insights, after reading it I am, nonetheless, left with the feeling that her definitions have become so broad as to seemingly negate any tangible, differentiated meaning. Within the essay, LeBlanc uses Bonnie Zimmerman's concept of the "metaphorical lesbian," Adrienne Rich's concept of "compulsory heterosexuality," and de Lauretis' rejection of a biological definition of feminine gender in reevaluating The Awakening as a lesbian text. In doing so, she defines Edna Pontellier as this "metaphorical lesbian" in that the character repudiates the societal "myth of woman," fosters "women-identified" experience, crea... ...nature. As the novel progresses, Edna seems to pull away from her female relationships in that she stops receiving her women callers and even visits with Adele less frequently. Edna seems concerned with her sole self and its enrichment more than with forming and/or maintaining bonds with anyone else, except for maybe the male Robert. Even in regards to her sexuality, she appears to be more interested in the sexual feelings themselves than in who is creating them for her, such as with her indifference towards Arobin after their sexual interaction. In this light, perhaps Edna is more of a "metaphorical masturbator" than a "metaphorical lesbian." Regardless of Edna's metaphors, however, LeBlanc's metaphors in describing her are extremely inclusive in a way that leaves telling gaps. LeBlanc's "metaphorical lesbian" can thus be seen in actuality as a metaphorical nebula.

Ernest Hemingways Big Two-Hearted River Essay -- Big Two Hearted Rive

The world of Ernest Hemingway’s â€Å"Big Two-Hearted River† exists through the mostly unemotional eyes of the character Nick. Stemming from his reactions and the suppression of some of his feelings, the reader gets a sense of how Nick is living in a temporary escape from society and his troubles in life. Despite the disaster that befell the town of Seney, this tale remains one of an optimistic ideal because of the various themes of survival and the continuation of life. Although Seney itself is a wasteland, the pine plain and the campsite could easily be seen as an Eden, lush with life and ripe with the survival of nature. The world in the story exists as two separate but connected places. The first that Nick encounters is the charred remains of the town of Seney, where there is â€Å"nothing but the rails and the burned-over country.† The second place is the â€Å"alive† pine plain. The river, interestingly, runs through both parts, showing how they are interconnected. The river is a means of natural connection, while the man-made railroad is another form of connecting one town to the next. By combining these two forms of connection, it could be said that every place is interconnected. Using only the river as the natural form, it connects all forms of life within the world to one another. Seney exists as the wasteland, having been ravaged and destroyed by fire to the point of complete desolation. The town is described by what it is lacking as a contrast to what Nick had remembered to have been there, yet Nick does not display any sensation of loss. He had merely â€Å"expected to find† the town as it was before the fire, but when he does not, he simply goes to the river to watch the trout. It the trout that s... ...Nick is not yet ready for. In this way it could represent his return to civilization, which he is not yet ready for, and he therefore will continue his Edenic hiatus. While Nick himself does not react to his world as either specifically wasteland or Eden, the reader must realize that the story is a commentary on survival. Survival is a quality of an anti-wasteland, and although the town of Seney has been destroyed it will someday re-emerge. Even if it does not happen immediately, survival will go on in other places, and this is certainly an optimistic view of life. Whether it is Nick and the black grasshoppers’ temporary means, or the eternal survival of all of nature, the entire world cannot ever become an all enveloping wasteland. Work Cited Hemingway, Ernest. â€Å"Big Two Hearted River.† In Our Time. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970.

Ralph Jack in the Lord of the Flies and Jekyll and Hyde in the novel Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Essay

‘Lord of the flies’ and ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ both deal with the good and evil sides of man, even though Golding and Stevenson wrote their books in different historical periods. The novels are both dealing in the same theme. The authors use their characters to represent the struggle between good and evil. Golding uses a group of boys to show the divide of good and evil, while Stevenson used the good and evil within one person. As these authors use their characters to represent this struggle. It is important to see how they develop through the novel. Ralph in ‘Lord of the Flies’ is presented as a middle class boy at the beginning of the novel. Golding describes him as ‘the boy with the fair hair’, which is a symbol of a good person. The author describes how Ralph climbs easily through the undergrowth, which is contrasted with the way in which Piggy ‘clambers’ through it. The author has put Ralph and Piggy together because they are different in both mind and body. Together they will both make a whole good person. Ralph is tall, fit, good-looking and fair-haired. Ralph has a good background with his father being in the navy. This suggests that Ralph was brought up in a good way, so he should know the difference between right and wrong. This is a stereotypical good person, but Ralph is not a thinker. Ralph does do some bad things. He betrays Piggys name by telling all the other children what Piggys name was, when Piggy told him not to. Piggy is a short, plump; he wears glasses and is an orphan. Jack Merridew from ‘Lord of the Flies’ is first seen marching with his choir. The choir is described as a dark primitive being. Jack has a red hair, which suggests that he has an uncontrollable anger. He speaks to the choir in a military way. He talks down to them and ignores Simon when he faints. This shows that he has authority over the choir and he is insensitive towards other people’s weaknesses. Altogether I can see that he is hard, unsympathetic, cruel and possible a bully. The first time we see Dr Jekyll in ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ is at a dinner party. He is seen as a cheerful and confident man. He is wealthy and respected chemist. Stevenson describes him as ‘a large, well made, smooth faced man’. When Utterson mentions Mr Hyde he wants it to be a secret between himself an Utterson. He also does not want to talk about it. Stevenson gives Mr Utterson the role of narrator. This is because he wants part of the story to be missing (to allow the audience to be left guessing). Dr Jekyll is described through the eyes of Utterson and this could be bias because Utterson is a friend of Dr Jekyll. Mr Hyde is described for the first time in a story. In this story he collides with, knocks down and tramples a little girl. Hyde’s reaction is described as ‘hellish’. When other people arrive he brings out the worst in them. Even the doctor wants to kill him. When Hyde id threatened by scandal he aggress to pay compensation. He writes a check out at Dr Jekylls house with Jekylls signature. Utterson thinks he his blackmailing Jekyll. In both novels the evil gets and takes the chance to dominate. Jack and Mr Hyde both show their more primitive side. An example of Jacks primitive side is when he hunts for pigs. He is described as ‘dog-like on all fours’ and sniffing the humid earth. This suggests that he is more like a cave man, than a civilised human being. Mr Hyde on the other hand murders Carew. In the chapter ‘search for Mr Hyde’, Utterson describes Mr Hyde as ‘trodlodytic’, ‘Dwarfish’ and ‘hardly human’. This also suggests that Mr Hyde is more like primitive man. Further backing this up, he takes a ‘hissing intake of breath’, which is what a frightened animal would do. Both authors are saying that the primitive side of man will dominate if it has the chance. Darkness, which represents evil, and people are scared at night. Darkness is a big theme in both of the novels. Jack does his hunting in the forest, which is described from the beginning of the novel as a dark place by Golding. When Jack steels Piggys glasses he uses darkness as his cover. Simon gets killed in a frenzied attack, which happens at night. Mr Hyde is mostly seen at night. His home in So-ho is seen through a curtain of ‘swirling fog’. All of this information leads you to think that these people should be associated with darkness and evil. The novels are reflecting events in the authors’ lives. In Golding’s time an example of how evil can flourish without people doing anything is the concentration camps of WWII. Stevenson is writing about the hypocrisy in Victorian England. Many men went to prostitutes and then they promoted family values. Ralph and Dr Jekyll are the respected ‘civilised’ people in the two novels. Ralph is middle classed; you can see this when he talks about his father as ‘daddy’. Ralph is sensible and wants to rule democratically by using the conch and lets everyone have a vote. He has sensible ideas, to stay alive and get rescued, like the fire and shelters. Dr Jekyll is also middle class. He is a respected chemist. The painting, which he gave Mr Hyde, shows that Dr Jekyll is cultured. The ‘pleasurable dinner parties’ he gave showed he was a confident and cheerful. Both of these characters try to take control early in both novels yet they are not successful. Even though both of these characters are ‘civilised’ they are not perfect. Ralph was rude to Piggy and disrespected his wishes. Ralph also took part in the killing of Simon, which shows that even he can be evil. Dr Jekyll also not perfect. He already leads a double life. Hyde grew from Dr Jekyll. Dr Jekyll did things he was ashamed of. He ‘already committed to a profound duplicity of life’. At the end of the novels order if restored and the civilised side of man takes over again. In ‘Lord of the Flies’ order is restored by the arrival of the navy officer. When the navy officer arrives so do rules and order. This is what the navy and more importantly adults’ represent. At the end of the ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ Dr Jekyll has to die for the evil of Mr Hyde to die. Mr Hyde kills himself. I think this was because he gains the knowledge of what he has done. He gains a conscience, which drives him to kill himself. I feel that ‘Lord of the Flies’ is more depressing view of human nature because it deals with children which are meant to be innocent and not capable of killing. It also deals with more than one person, which shows that it could happen to everyone.

Literacy in America Essay

America, the most technologically advanced and affluent of all nations on the earth, seems to have an increasingly larger illiteracy rate every year. This has become and continues to be a critical problem throughout our society as we know it. According to the National Adult Literacy survey, 42 million adult Americans can’t read; 50 million are limited to a 4th or 5th grade reading level; one in every four teenagers drops out of high school, and of the students who graduate, one in every four has around an 8th grade education. Why? You ask. This problem will never fix itself and will take quite a bit of time to overcome. We need to make sure that everyone is aware of the social problems, poverty and lack of family interaction that occurs everyday in many, if not all, communities throughout America. â€Å"Nearly a billion people, two-thirds of them women, will enter this world unable to read a book or write their names,† warns UNICEF in a new report, â€Å"The State of the World’s Children 1999. † UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, points out that the illiterate â€Å"live in more desperate poverty and poorer health† than those who can read and write. (Boaz). The most important factor that contributes to the outrageous statistics of illiteracy is that of poverty. Poverty is an issue that more and more of our nation’s children are coming face to face with and the price they must pay is unbelievably high. Poverty is considered a major at-risk factor (Leroy 2001). The term at-risk refers to children who are likely to fail whether it 2 be at school or life in general because of their life’s social circumstances. Some of the factors that may place these children at-risk are: dangerous neighborhoods; young, uneducated parents; unemployment; and inadequate educational experiences. Teachers need to be aware of the circumstances that their students face and be able and ready to help these children find a balance between the cultural values that they may have and values emphasized in school. By providing emotional support, modeling, and other forms of scaffolding, teachers can help students use their strengths, skills, and knowledge to develop and learn ( Marlowe and Page,9). The United States prides itself on being a free, democratic state. Jonathan Kozol’s essay â€Å"The Human Cost of an Illiterate Society† states that the United States is not the democracy it claims to be. For democracy to work at its best, a true representation of the common interests and how the majority feels about those interests must be in place. According to Kozol, about â€Å"60 million people in the United States are illiterate. † For the United States to be the self-functioning democratic state it proclaims to be, it has to be a literate society. The people of the United States are not part of a democracy without the full capacity to make informed choices, and furthermore cannot reap the benefits that a democratic society has to offer if the best interests of the majority are not represented. Direct quote #2 (Madison)with signal phrase. Hypo-thetical example James Madison wrote that a â€Å"people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives. A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both† (Surowiecki, page 4). Voting is by far the most important aspect of a democratic society, and the percentage of people who do vote is a topic of much discussion here in the United States. If the number of people not voting is such a significant concern then the reasons they are not voting is 3 as well. An uneducated vote is not any better than a vote not cast at all. Imagine going to a voting booth and voting for a person or a ballot measure based on the ads you see on the TV only. In this circumstance, decisions are often made based on the negative ideas offered by both major political parties. If 60 million people in the United States cannot read, then they cannot cast a vote truly representative of their opinions. As Kozol claims, the United States has in fact become a government â€Å"of those two thirds whose wealth, skin color, or parental privilege allows them opportunity to profit from the provocation and instruction of the written word† (Kozol). The percentage of the population that is illiterate cannot choose which candidates make it onto the ballots, they cannot sign petitions, and they cannot choose which measures will pass or those that will fail. Direct quote #3 (Kozal), with signal phrase e. Of equal importance to a democratic society are the benefits that literacy provides to the public. When one is illiterate they are not able to reap the benefits of a free society. The freedom to choose enhances one’s chances of experiencing the best of anything. Illiteracy makes for a life of settling. An illiterate person has to settle for another’s interpretations of the world. According to the article ‘Democracy 101,† the ability to read opens a world that many people do not consider. The choice of where to live, what to eat, and where to work may all seem commonplace to the average literate person. Kozol uses the warning on a can of Drano in the opening of this essay to educate. It may take a moment for it to sink in but the reader will soon realize how much power reading and writing holds. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are supposed to be guaranteed to all citizens of this country. Those that cannot read or write do not have the capability to choose who are the best people suited for ensuring those rights. Perhaps more importantly the 60 million illiterate people in this country cannot make the choices necessary to make use of those rights (Kozol). References Boaz, David. â€Å"Illiteracy — The Bad News and the Good. † Cato Institute. 20 Jan. 1999. Kim, J. K. â€Å"NRRF – Illiteracy: An Incurable Disease or Education Malpractice? † Kozol, Jonathan, Illiteracy: The Enduring Problem. â€Å". Leroy. â€Å"The Effects of Poverty on Teaching and Learning. † 2001 Surowiecki, James. â€Å"The Dangers of Financial Illiteracy in America. † The New Yorker.