...Paradox of Our Age We have taller buildings but shorter tempers; wider freeways but narrower viewpoints; we spend more but have less; we buy more but enjoy it less; we have bigger houses and smaller families; more conveniences, yet less time; we have more degrees but less sense; more knowledge but less judgement; more experts, yet more problems; we have more gadgets but less satisfaction; more medicine, yet less wellness; we take more vitamins but see fewer results. We drink too much; smoke too much; spend too recklessly; laugh too little; drive too fast; get too angry quickly; stay up too late; get up too tired; read too seldom; watch TV too much and pray too seldom. We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; we fly in faster planes to arrive there quicker, to do less and return sooner; we sign more contracts only to realize fewer profits; we talk too much; love too seldom and lie too often. We've learned how to make a living, but not a life; we've added years to life, not life to years. We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing the street to meet the new neighbor. We've conquered outer space, but not inner space; we've done larger things, but not better things; we've cleaned up the air, but polluted the soul; we've split the atom, but not our prejudice; we write more, but learn less; plan more, but accomplish less; we make faster planes, but longer lines; we learned to rush, but not to wait; we have more weapons, but less peace;...
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... this is the exact case in the short story “Where the Gods fly” written by Jean Kwok, in 2012, where a small Chinese family moves to USA where they face a lot of difficulties, adapting to the new society. The structure of the short story, “Where the Gods fly”, is quite significant. The story begins in medias res “I kneel here before the gods and the thought of what I am about to do stings in my eyes like incense”. This beginning is in fact the ending of the story, as the decision, that the mother makes, is going to be irreversible. The rest of the story until the end focusses on how the mother came to this crucial decision. Throughout the story, the narrator goes into details about the struggle Perl’s family faced when they immigrated to the United States of America. The narrator uses Pearl’s life as a timeline. Basically, the short story starts in the present tense in the first couple of lines. (ll. 1-8). After which, the text changes into the past tense, as we are introduced to the struggle the family stumbles upon every day. “Pearl was too young, or so I argued[…]” (l. 9). At the end of the story, we are back in present tense: “The monks are ringing the gong”(l.153), where she prays to Buddha about letting her daughter understand why she will take her greatest passion away. Finally, at the very end, the story turns into the future tense, when the mother decides how Pearl´s future is to come. You could argue that the structure of the short story is a bit complicated compared...
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..."The Arena" is a short story written by Martin Golan. I am going through this task to analyze and interpret this text. The text sheds light on several different areas. This means that the text comes in on topics, such as nervousness, stress, discomfort, family, children, etc. In rough outline deals with text around a father who has promised her that drive him over to an arena where ice hockey is played. The majority of the novel takes place in the car where the danger and the son sit and talk and discuss how far they will achieve it or not. For the son's point of view, it is not a disaster, whether they reach it or not, but in the father's heart, it is different. But getting through the text hints that there is a reason to believe that this incident has happened something cruel. In the text do you get as a reader to know that the father in the past have lost a son, and that he has gone to therapy. You may be able to call it his earlier life when this occurred. Through the short story will be told that the father has got a new wife, and thus also a new child. Although he is married, and "happy" there are still some different traits that makes you as a reader, becomes aware that he is not happy. It will be told in the short story, to his father's new wife is very similar to his previous wife. This can be a symbol of unrequited love and need. I believe that his new wife is a symbol of his old wife. He would like to have the Lady, which he lost, and the closest he comes to this is...
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...crucial period in his childhood development; Vonnegut’s literary pieces are a reflection of what he observed the world to be through his own life experiences. The majority of his works are science fiction used to “[help] lend form to the presentation of this world view without imposing a falsifying causality upon it (Reed),” as Peter Reed mentioned in an autobiography about Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut believed that science fiction offers a perception into an everyday society, rather than escaping it. The extraordinary events he experienced throughout his life served as motivation and influenced him to write stories about the world; as a result, Vonnegut showed an immense appreciation about life in his literary pieces. Kurt Vonnegut continued to pursue his goal of demonstrating to the world how wonderful life is through creations in the graphic arts. In 1950, Vonnegut published his first short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” followed by “The Sirens of Titan” (1959), “Cat’s Cradle” (1963), “Slaughterhouse-Five” (1969), and “Breakfast of Champions” (1973). The society in which Kurt Vonnegut was a part of highly valued the ideal of equality; the short story “Harrison Bergeron” was written to foreshadow the oppression that such a society can cause if these ideals are taken too literal. In 1961, this short story was one of the most impactful short stories he has ever written, “Harrison Bergeron” critiqued an authoritarian government by using tone, theme, and symbolism. Vonnegut uses...
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..."The Arena" is a short story written by Martin Golan. I am going through this task to analyze and interpret this text. The text sheds light on several different areas. This means that the text comes in on topics, such as nervousness, stress, discomfort, family, children, etc. In rough outline deals with text around a father who has promised her that drive him over to an arena where ice hockey is played. The majority of the novel takes place in the car where the danger and the son sit and talk and discuss how far they will achieve it or not. For the son's point of view, it is not a disaster, whether they reach it or not, but in the father's heart, it is different. But getting through the text hints that there is a reason to believe that this incident has happened something cruel. In the text do you get as a reader to know that the father in the past have lost a son, and that he has gone to therapy. You may be able to call it his earlier life when this occurred. Through the short story will be told that the father has got a new wife, and thus also a new child. Although he is married, and "happy" there are still some different traits that makes you as a reader, becomes aware that he is not happy. It will be told in the short story, to his father's new wife is very similar to his previous wife. This can be a symbol of unrequited love and need. I believe that his new wife is a symbol of his old wife. He would like to have the Lady, which he lost, and the closest he comes to this is...
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...Essay on “A Journey” by Colm Tóibín. 1. Life is a never-ending circle, when someone dies, someone else is born. It is a pattern that we all follow; it is a growth that we all go through. Though the choices we take in life make us individuals, there is a basic growth pattern that we all endure. Being born, growing into a teenager, into an adult, into an elderly, and last we will finally become one with the very earth we came from. The journey of life, from we are born till we die is one of the main themes treated in Colm Tóibíns short-story “A Journey”. The short-story’s protagonist is a married, middle-aged woman named Mary. The story takes place in a car with her and her depressed son, whom she is driving home from the hospital. Before this we are told, in the beginning of the short-story, that David was born nearly after 20 years of marriage between Seamus (Mary’s husband) and herself. David’s first encounter with grave topics such as death was at a young age of merely four. He became the replacement of Mrs Redmond’s (a woman who lived in a nearby cottage) husband, who we are told passed away, just before David was born – this illustrates perfectly my point that when one life pass away another one enters the scene. Mrs Redmond began coming everyday to help Mary, and babysit at night if the she and Seamus were out of town. This is of course is Mrs Redmond’s way to get her mind on something else after the death of her husband, and in that way David becomes a sort of a...
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...The Decline of The West Short story by: Hanif Kureishi The Decline of the West is a short story written by the English, half Pakistani writer Hanif Kureishi in 2010. The main theme in the short story is the capitalism and how material we have become in the West in the year of 2010 and how we strive to gain material comfort ahead of true happiness and greater meaning in life. The short story’s main character is a forty-five year old man named Mike who is on his way home to his family. It takes place in the upper class of the outskirts of London. Mike thinks that his family will appreciate that he is home early from work, which is not something that occurs since he is not working less than twelve-hour shifts. Mike seems as a hard-working man who does not spend much time with his family and we get a very negative picture of his family. There is a very cold attachment between him and he family since he is never home. But they can be demanding and the content that fills up their lives is material goods. At the short beginning the atmosphere and language is described very positive. Mike has endured the most desolate tube trip home and is looking forward to come home to his family and their home which is described as a nice and warm home he is looking forward to come home to; “Opening the door to a warm hall hearing the voices of his wife and children”. Though he has to tell his wife, Imogen that he got fired from his job. The language is well written in informal language...
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...we do not always want to do the same thing as others. The short story, Poetic Justice, written by Diana Appleyard, is about a woman who gets a flashback to when she was younger. She is sitting at the computer and sees a familiar name, Jed Cunningham, which is her old boyfriend. Jed is described as an ‘Irish poet’ and a man who is living his dreams to the fullest. He had his own idea on how the world was spinning. When the narrator thinks of him, she remembers him as he used to be back in the days. In Jed’s younger days, he was described as a guy who was not afraid to stand out. Jed was a role model, and an inspiration to the other students, “I mean, he was Jed, Jed who always stood outside the herd, the coolest of the cool with the fashion everyone else followed,” (P. 1. l. 22-24). He had dreams about becoming a poet and travel. The narrator admired Jed and his dreams, but when he left her, she got hurt, “How did it end? She remembered tears, and anger, something being thrown. And him driving off saying she would never see or speak to him again.”(P. 2 l. 58-59). When Jed contacts the narrator, many years later, with “Where are you?” (P. 3 l. 94), she cannot believe that he actually wrote to her. The question he asks is quite interesting, because he is not asking her how she is doing, or how she has been since the last time they were talking together. The narrator thinks about how her life have turned out, and how it would have if she had stayed with Jed. She believes that...
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...Wood The short story by Naomi Wood was written in 2012, and is about Pia, who is a middle-aged woman and the day where the short story takes place, is her 40th birthday. In this story we meet Pia, her partner Daniel and random people from the streets and of course Pia is our main character. The short story starts in the middle of Pia’s day, she just finished working and she is about to leave the car park at work. She is on her way home, where her partner Daniel waits to take her to a restaurant to celebrate her birthday, but on her way home she is reflecting over what it means to turn 40. The short story is told in a chronological order, but with flash back-like situations “Giving in, she ghosted back through memory. She drank the coffee, ate the omelette, took down the laundry...”. What’s most important is the middle and the ending of the short story, how Pia starts by thinking that turning forty will only be the first of many depressing situations, but actually comes to the conclusion that it is only as depressing as you make it. It is kind of an open ending where the author puts in a line saying “Time waits for no man” which sums up on every reflections Pia had during her drive home. The atmosphere of the story is to begin with really tense and dim because of how Pia feels about herself. Turning 40 should be something to celebrate but for Pia it is the same as starting digging your own grave. When she hears the news of the neutrinos she “…wondered, too, if their course...
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...SCRIPT WRITING FOR SHORT FILMS: A Practical Guide In 8 Steps Stuart Hepburn Lecturer in Screenwriting and Performance University of the West of Scotland This Screenwriting guide has been written as a Practical Step By Step account of how you can go from being an unproduced filmmaker to a winner, in a few basic steps. We want you to able to write the best five minute screenplay possible. We want you to play with the form, experiment, and most importantly, find your own voice. Introduction: FilmG – The Gaelic Shorts Competition The FilmG Shorts competition is a fantastic opportunity for anyone wishing to take their first steps in making a short film. However, to succeed in the competition, you have to ensure that your film is as good as it possibly can be. Why? Because five minutes is a short time, and any deficiencies in the script will be exposed sooner rather than later. You only have one chance with your script, and if you miss it, you have lost your audience. N.B. These are NOT a set of rules, but simply a suggested strategy for writing your film. THE 8 STEPS 1. Find a small idea 2. Explore the structure 3. Define your world, character and problem 4. Beat it out 5. Write the first draft 6. Find a critical friend 7. Write the second draft 8. Write the third draft STEP 1: Find a small idea It may be stating the obvious, but every short film needs, at its core, an “idea.” This idea can be as ...
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...summer's day? |often as Death Rough shall too lines fair | |Thou art more lovely and more temperate: |or is his that and eye to life too | |Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, |can summer's shake sometime breathe, Sometime thee thou buds | |And summer's lease hath all too short a date: |summer's | |Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, |Nor do often compare in more eternal see, shade, wander'st I | |And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; |fade, or date: | |And every fair from fair sometime declines, |growest; thee. wander'st winds growest; | |By chance, or nature's changing course, untrimm'd; |see, can nature's eternal lives more | |But thy eternal summer shall not fade, |buds growest; of lovely of wander'st to day? eye is lives | |Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; |lovely growest; that too | |Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade, |this and a all summer brag life buds...
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...In the National Gallery – by Doris Lessing Memories are a central and huge thing in people’s life. You cannot remember them all, but you can neither forget them all. Sometimes a smell, taste or a look at another thing can make them appear again. In the short story In the National Gallery written by Doris Lessing a memory of a childhood love appears in an older man’s head again. By seeing a girl, who looks like one of his further loves, he suddenly remembers how his love was. He suddenly remembers how it was to be ignored and not to be seen. The short story is a description of the man’s passion for his childhood love, which never really came out of sight and almost was killed by more than forty-eight years, until the French girl appears in the Gallery. Whether it is good that memories reappear, you have to find that out for yourself. In this quote: “My intention was simple” (line 1), it is very clear that the narrator is a 1st person narrator. The person uses her/his voice to describe what is happening at the National Gallery. The narrator acts passively through almost everything in the story, and the only situation were the narrator does more than just observe, is when the narrator talks with an older man about his first love, at the same time that the French girl sits alone on the bench. This is the only time in the short story where the narrator actually has a role in comprehension of what there will happen later. The old man gets attracted by the narrator to take action...
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...Indian Camp The short story Indian Camp is about Nick Adams and his father (Dr. Adams), who rows out to an Indian Camp, because there is an Indian lady, who has been in labor for two days. Nick is with his father on work, because he is about to be a grown up and therefore his father thinks, that it is in time, that Nick sees how life is created – but not the consequences of life. Through this day Nick goes through some rite of passages, because he learns how to make his own decisions without getting influenced by his father. Indian Camp happens in the 1920’s, where it was written, because of the primitive conditions. The short story takes place in an Indian camp, which look we picture in our heads, because the camp and its surroundings are described detailed in the text (page 13 line 16-19). There are three characters included in the action; Nick Adams, his father (Dr. Adams) and the American Indian woman. Nick is the protagonist in the short story, who goes through a rite of passage, which makes him develop. In the beginning he sits in his father’s arms on their way to the Indian camp, where the father says that the reason to, why they are going over to Indian camp is because, there is an Indian lady very sick (page 12 line 14). It is a very pedagogic way to say, that there is a woman, who has been in labor for two days. On their way home, Nick sits in the stern, while his father is rowing (page 16 line 21-22). Through this day Nick grows so much mentally, because he experiences...
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...Internal form of communication intended relatively short messages between staff members | Technical | Memos are used as internal correspondence with a business | Letter | Used to communicate outside of the company | Expository | Written record of correspondence, can be useful in event the of a dispute | Manual | To provide instruction on the use of programs or products within a business | Technical | Explains how to use a product or program | Website | Used to boost sales and strengthen relationships with existing and potential customers | Both | A website provides information and communication between customers and business or business to business. | Other – Text Messaging | Short messages that replace memos or emails | Both | Short messages between employees within a business or to a mass crowd (Amber Alert) | 1. What is the most common form of written communication in your workplace or in a workplace with which you are familiar? Is expository writing or technical writing the most common form of written communication in this workplace? Who is responsible for most of the technical writing in this workplace? The most common form of written communication in my workplace is e-mail. I work for the United States Marine Corps as a Life-Cycle Logistician for Infantry Combat Equipment. I use both expository and technical writing, depending on who I am communicating with. I use expository writing when discussing equipment life-cycle to the whole Marine Corps establishment...
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...nightmare becomes shockingly brutal reality and someone loses their child. A grief, completely unimaginable for anyone who has never experienced it, is laid upon one as if it was a carpet of lead. For many people it is the sole aim that they have built their life around and with the blink of an eye it is gone. How does a parent cope with this unparalleled pain? And is it possible to repress the memories and start a new life after an absolute lowpoint? It is exactly this issue the short story ”The Arena” by Martin Golan provides an insight to. The short story was written in 2008 and the setting is a father, who is also the first person narrator, driving his son to the local New Jersey suburb sports arena early in the morning. His son is attending an away game with his lacrosse team and is being dropped off at the team bus waiting outside the large ”structure of steel and cinder block” locally known as the Arena. On his way there, the narrator’s mind starts wandering due to a mixture of early morning clarity and the deserted suburbian roads and it is soon made clear what his thoughts are surrounding. The father lives with his wife and their son, whom he is in the car with, but his thoughts keep circling around his previous life with another woman and their adopted, now deceased, son Willie. The traumatic event of losing his son in a traffic accident is still haunting him and he struggles to keep the past and present seperated. Despite attending counseling groups and trying to regain...
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