...Joshua Bisbe Mrs. Blankenship English 4 14 November 2015 3 Relations to Modern Life in A Tale of Two Cities During period of lost hope, death and war, the golden thread, Lucie Manette plays the part of a woman doing anything she can to make sure the main people surrounding are content. Lucie suffices not only warmth toward her dad, Dr. Manette, but also for the man that yearns for Lucie's love; Sydney Carton. Despite all the negative inputs that surround Lucie and her beloved peers, she doesn't hesitate to guide her father and Carton to resurrection. Unlike the steps of real birth, rebirth is partners with rejuvenation. Rebirth is a better or new birth and in the idea of A Tale of Two Cities it is deserved. Rebirth is thought of as...
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...very different than the protagonist in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Changez. Although both take the unofficial titles of narrators in the novels that they are encompassed in, the values of the two greatly differ. Milkman Dead is an egotistical, sheltered, and privileged African American living up in an unnamed Michigan town. Throughout the majority of the book, Milkman is the embodiment of an immature young man indiscriminately drifting through life. Milkman is caught up in the materialistic ways that he perhaps inherited through the ways of his father. Additionally, Milkman lacks compassion for those perceived as inferior to him and lacks a sense of commitment to his family. Changez, on the other hand, is an intelligent and reserved Pakistani man in his mid-twenties who graduated at the top of his class from Princeton. Unlike many of his wealthy acquaintances at Princeton, Changez had little money and was attending the school on financial aid. To the cost of tuition, he worked three off-campus jobs, studied tirelessly, and cooked his own meals in his dormitory....
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...American Dream Theme’s in Taxi Driver An Annotated Bibliography Dempsey, Michael. Rev. of Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese/Michael Phillips/Julia Phillips/Tony Bill. Film Quarterly Vol. 29, No. 4 (Summer, 1976). Pp. 37-41. Print. Dempsey’s review of Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese is an analytical synopsis of the film given in comparison through other novels and films. Dempsey opens his criticism of Taxi Driver by stating that Taxi Driver’s inspiration came from Robert Bresson’s Four Nights of a Dreamer. Dempsey continues to recap the film and calls De Niro’s portrayal of the main character as bringing a brilliant conception alive with expert minimalism. Dempsey’s most surprising review comes in the form of the infamous climactic end to the film. Dempsey describes this as “only a revenge movie cliché; like the shark attacks in Jaws” further stating that is only provided a reflexive physical reaction. Ebert, Roger. Rev. of Taxi Driver, by Martin Scorsese/Michael Phillips/Julia Phillips/Tony Bill. 1 Jan. 2004. Web. 24 Nov. 2013. < http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-taxi-driver-1976>. Ebert’s review of Taxi Driver directed by Martin Scorsese was a post look of great American films that Ebert put on his acclaimed “top rated” listing. Ebert describes the lead character Travis Bickle as “ a character with a desperate need to make some sort of contact somehow—to share or mimic the effortless social interaction he sees all around him, but does not participate...
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...new millennium. Set in 1799, Burton’s film modifies the 1790 date that Irving’s text is set in, showing an acute concern with living out anxieties surrounding millennial change in the ‘safe’ formats of film and of established folk legend. Irving’s tale, written in 1820, also works with antiquity, but in a different manner: it lives out colonial cultural anxieties of Irving’s present, as he seems to be concerned with constructing archetypes of folk and with placing folk culture in the new American literary landscape. Examining the two versions of the tale, then, provides a fascinating peek into the transformation of concerns and values in America from Irving’s nineteenth century landscape to Burton’s twentieth (on the verge of twenty-first) century. Burton makes several significant moves that modify the basics of Irving’s tale, frequently at the cost of the folk elements of Irving’s version. The frame narrative of Irving’s story—the tale, part of a series titled “The Sketch Book,” begins with the preface “Found among the papers of the Late Diedrich Knickerbocker—is completely done away with (Irving 41). What is more, the second narrator of the story, who is narrating to Knickerbocker “at the corporation meeting of the ancient city of the Manhattoes,” is also disposed of (Irving 61). There is no narrator at all in Burton’s film, and the action that...
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...Wordsworth, and Jean Jacques Rousseau embodied the greatest aspects of the Romanticism era focusing on solitude, nature, and feelings. In 1830 the Realism movement started, a movement strife with inclusiveness and determinism that was highlighted in the works of Gustave Flaubert and Fyodor Dostoevsky. The most recent period was Modernism in which William Butler Yeats and T.S. Eliot used rationalism and psychoanalysis when writing their poems. Each period uprooted the period before it and the writers values and views contradicted those of the writers who proceeded them. The major aspects of each period are very apparent when dissecting the writers who lived through them. The Age of Reason covered from 1660 to 1770 and focused on order, cities, and used satire as a tool to find reason. Voltaire’s Candide and Swift’s A Modest Proposal were both satire that questioned traditions and philosophical norms of the times. In Candide, Voltaire mocks the idea that eternal optimism of ones course in life by continuously throwing the worst case scenarios at his protagonist. In the end Candide finds solace in nature and focusing on the everyday tasks. Swift’s almost humorous A Modest Proposal questions the idea of lazily accepting the British rule over Ireland. The not so modest proposal from Swift drew questions against the social order and witty comedic attack against what was at that time the social norm....
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...A Tale Of Two Cities The focus of A Tale Of Two Cities concerns the impetus and fervor of 18th century European socio-political turmoil, its consequences, and what Dickens presents as the appropriate response of an enlightened aristocracy and just citizenry. The tale opens with Dr. Manettte having spent the last 18 years of his life in the Bastille - innocent of all crimes save his disdain for the base actions of a French Marquis. The heinous nature of his confinement induced a madness remedied only by the devoted love of his Lucie. We next encounter these characters five years later attending the trial of Charles Darnay - a nobly born French immigrant who relinquished his station rather than partake in the barbarous class structure of 18th century France. The beautiful and virtuous Lucie Manette is admired by both Sydney Carton and his repugnant legal partner, C.J.Stryver. It is the inherently ethical Carton, not the aristocratic (and bellicose) Stryver who realizes that marriage to Charles Darnay would bring the greatest happiness to Lucie. Their bliss is short lived however,as the honor bound Darnay returns to Paris. His prosecution is propelled by a vengeful and newly empowered Madame Defarge a "patriot of the revolution" who utilizes the revolutionary "People's Tribunals" to redress grievances committed by the Evremonde clan. Aided by her cohort (aptly given the code name of "Vengeance") retribution, not justice, is her sole...
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...even the most diligent student, and they are often hard to get through. Any such person that would favor the latter argument might be in favor of using works of historical fiction, such as novels and biographies, to aid in the learning process. Using these tools, they could offer students a way to view the time period they are learning about in a different way and also make the subject matter more relatable through characters while also having historical events as a back drop. Historical Fiction, Novels and biographies, such as A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, can be used to make history more enjoyable and relatable to students in modern times. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens is a prime example of literature that can be used to aid students in learning about history. Though it was written in 1859, almost 100 years after the book takes place, it had a series of relatable characters, all of whom were affected by the tension in the cities of Paris and London in the years leading up to the French Revolution. The book begins by demonstrating how impoverished the citizens were, as shown through the scene in which a bottle of wine is broken in the street and all of the citizens “within reach had suspended their business to run to the spot and drink the wine…” (Dickens 31). Later on, it is shown through the Monseigneur of Marquis how the wealthy aristocratic class lived and how they interacted with the common people. The Monseigneur showed no remorse after his carriage...
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...City of Glass Story by Paul Auster Essay by Vanessa Jagna Hoff Levinsen In this essay, we will be working with Paul Auster’s novel “City of Glass”. In the story, we follow the character Daniel Quinn, whose occupation is writing literature. This novel works with different themes that are related to mental health. The first theme we will be talking about is a question of identity; who am I, and who are you? We will follow this with describing human contact’s connection with the sanity of mankind. Social life and its influence on our mentality will lead us to the question of the masks of mankind; who is the real personality among the many faces of a single human. We will also discuss the theme of deciding. What crucial decisions have lead to the life we now live, and what could have been, if our stories had taken place just a tiny bit differently. Last but not least we will go into depth with Quinn’s mental disorder and how it is related to the other characters in the novel. Can a single, presumably random incident change the entire course of our lives? We all have one or more events that changed the entire direction of our own personal tales of existence. It can be a moment of clarity, where we realised we had lived our lives wrong the entire time. It could be the moment we bumped into that special someone, and fell in love. Or maybe it was that day when you received a rather odd phone call; let us say that perhaps you got a phone call from someone who looked for a detective...
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...Repetition: “Literary device that repeats the same words or phrases a few times to make an idea clearer.” Example: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known”(386). Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities Context: In A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, Charles Darnay is condemned to death because of the Evremondes’ bad awful reputation among the common people in France. Living up to his promise to Lucie, Carton decides that he will take Darnay’s place at the Guillotine. On the day of the execution, he reveals his last thoughts. Concept: The quote above repeats a phrase over again to emphasize the new meaning of Carton’s life. Before his death, Carton reflects the value of his life and repeats, “it is a far, far better…”(386). Throughout...
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...popular. But the debate still continues. Was this man just an English storyteller or a campaigner for social justice? I believe Charles John Huffam Dickens was one of the greatest social critics the world has ever seen for his commentary on the English social structure. But why did Dickens commentate on social injustice? Was he ever affected? Dickens’s deep social commitment and awareness of social ills are derived from his traumatic childhood experiences when his father was imprisoned and he at the age of twelve worked in a shoe-blacking factory. Imagine that, working at the age of 12 in a factory with no guidance from a mother or father? As a result, Dickens developed a strong social conscious which put into his two most recognisable novels, A Tale of Two Cities which continues to be the best seller of all time with over 200 million copies and Oliver Twist. Dickens succeeded in making the Victorian public aware of the conditions of the poor through his book Oliver Twist and through the characterisation of his titular character, Oliver Twist. In Oliver Twist Dickens presents a portrait of the macabre childhood of a considerable number of Victorian orphans. The orphans are underfed, and for a meal they are given a single scoop of gruel. Oliver, one of the oppressed children, dares to ask for more gruel and is severely punished. This is represented when Oliver asks the master, “Please, sir, I want some more?” This scene in the novel marked early...
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...Musician Elijah Wald, author of Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas recounts an interview with a hashish smuggler living in southern Texas, who spoke of an older corrido featuring his grandfather (2001, 2-3). The theme of the song was comprised of smuggling, but not the type of smuggling most would first assume. This song commonly referred as “Los Tequileros” was one of the first corridos turning away from the romantic notes and singing of the social strife occurring in Mexico. Produced sometime between the 1920s and 1930s, Los Tequileros, expressed a tale of three tequila smugglers who were ambushed and killed by the Texas Rangers as they attempted to illegal import their product across the border. However,...
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...In Book One of A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens used diction, tone, and syntax to inform readers of the physical state of Doctor Manette, a former Bastille prisoner, in order for them to see how prisoners in the Bastille were treated. This was expressed in the following passage: "The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak...
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...The movie defines a connection between the shrine festival, the shrine god, and the comet. The comet breaks off everytime it comes within orbit of the Earth as explained by the cave painting when Taki drinks the kuchikamizake. The first comet, in the past, created the first massive crater from which people would start calling “God.” The second breakoff of the comet lands where the shrine was built in Mitsuha’s town, creating a lake. In consistence with the theme, the shrine festival is also held on the same day as the comet breakoff. These points solidify that there is a connection between, the comet, god, and the shrine. The shrine god’s power is at its apex when the comet seems to be of close proximity to Earth’s orbit and helps explain how Future Taki and Current Mitsuha were able to interact as if they were in the same timeline at the crater where they saw each other. Because the shrine god’s power was at it’s peak during twilight, they seemed to have been able to have bend time to make the two meet. Mitsuha had also created the kuchiki mizake sake during the shrine festival, and because she was the inherited priestess by blood, Taki drinking the sake had allowed for the shrine god to bring them into the same...
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...Essay Allusions to Hamlet in Modern World As everyone knows, Hamlet was written by William Shakespeare over 400 years ago, but, however, it continues to reign as one of the most imitated and relevant plays of our time. Interpretations of Shakespeare’s classic tale of revenge have turned up in some surprising places: children’s television programs and films, a popular television series about a corrupt motorcycle gang and other well-known shows, motion pictures, and best-selling contemporary novels. Perhaps one of the most interesting Hamlet interpretations is a film for children called Green Eggs and Hamlet. The live-action film, released in 1995 and written by Mike O’Neil, retells the tragic tale in classic Dr. Seuss rhyme. The film follows Prince Hamlet as he seeks to avenge his father’s murder, while his servant, Sam Iamlet, encourages him to sample a new food dish. The Disney classic, The Lion King, is also fully based on Hamlet. Released in 1994, The Lion King contains some direct parallels to the play, including the death of King Mufasa at the hands of his scheming brother, Scar. Mufasa’s young son, Simba, is visited by his dead father’s ghost, and there is even comic relief provided by two supplemental characters – Timon and Pumba. Although there is some debate over whether the references to Hamlet were intentional, this is where the similarities end, as The Lion King has a much happier ending and far fewer deaths. Sesame Street also took on the almighty play. Monsterpiece...
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...Summary of A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945 by Vikram Seth A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945 by Vikram Seth is a remarkable poem describing the horrors of the aftermath of an atomic bomb explosion. This tragic poem describes the condition of the survivors of the atomic bombing by the United States on Hiroshima during the end of the World War II on 6th of August 1945. The narrator in the poem, A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945, is a doctor. The poem begins with a calm and serene note. The doctor says that it was dawn and he was in his bed, not fully clothed. When he stretched out and looked outside, he saw shining leaves and shadows. In the next moment, there were two sudden flashes of strong light and the old stone lantern in his room lit up by itself. The doctor wondered whether the flashes were magnesium flares seen during a war. In the next moment, the doctor finds out that the roof and wall of his building has collapsed and the debris were scattered all over. Dust covered up the whole place and clothes disappeared from his body. They were burnt. The doctor was wounded on his cheek, thigh and he was bleeding. A piece of glass had entered into his body which he removes ‘detachedly.’ He was wondering what suddenly took place and what had happened to him. The narrator called out his wife, ‘where are you, Yecko-san?’ Yecko-san looked pale, frightened and had blood stains on her body. The doctor assures his wife that they would be fine and they...
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