Essays on Brutes

Question 1

“Through history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness” (DuBois 13). This statement by W.E.B DuBois captures the power of his book in attempting to change the mindsets of African Americans about their self worth relative to those of people from other races. It is a statement rich in rhetoric because it contains a symbol and simile where black men are likened to flashing fallings stars to indicate the plight of even the brightest of black men. African Americans have fallen prey to rhetoric ...

In the book Emile, Rousseau borrowed a lot of thinkers that came before him. He had the arguments of John Locke on teaching and education. Still, he quite remarkably combined the arguments of the preceding philosophers to form a coherent and comprehensive teaching system. Using the medium of the novel, Rousseau was able to dramatize such that they reached a wide audience. Rousseau saw the system of education as married to nature that had characteristics of harmony, and concern for the learner as well as the learning process itself. The premise of this argument was the preservation of the original perfection of ...

The world can be a dangerous place. The invention of civilization was how human beings escaped from the constant danger of the wilds and began to live in lives of comfort and protection. But the natural has never been fully escaped. Woods border our cities and wild lands where there is the impression that danger lurks in the night. The poet Robert Frost wrote poetry that often explored this danger in the wilds. This is called Frost’s “Theory of Circle Of Security.” Everyone within a civilization lives within a circle of security. This essay explains the worlds within Frost’s circle ...

Plot summary

Heart of Darkness is set in colonial Africa and revolves around Marlow, a meditative sailor, and his expedition through the Congo River to meet Kurtz, an optimist with myriad abilities. While working as a riverboat captain for a Belgian company trading in Africa, Marlow meets face to face with high handedness and cruelty meted against the natives in the Company’s stations. They are forced into hard labor, and are heavily overworked and mistreated by the Company’s agents. Marlow turns up at the central station under the care of general manager and discover s that his steamship had been grounded and ...

In Charlie Chaplin’s 1940 comedy The Great Dictator, Chaplin’s first silent film, the renowned comedian and silent-film joymaker takes one of his biggest risks – making a film about Adolf Hitler, who at the time of the film’s release was one of the most hated and tyrannical figures alive. More than just the typical slapstick comedy, The Great Dictator sees Chaplin taking many different chances – unlike his previous film, Modern Times, this film would fully embrace the sound era, with nearly the entire film being filled with dialogue and fully-verbose characters. Even riskier than that, however, is the ...

Aristotle admitted that his argument that some human beings were ‘natural’ slaves was a weak one because he was aware that slaves often did not show the characteristics of meekness, servility and stupidity that was expected, and often rebelled against their masters. This was true in the slave society of Sparta, just as it was in the Roman Republic and the plantation colonies of the America. Much as their masters wished them to be like dumb brutes and animals, and even where slaves put on a pretense of matching this stereotype, the reality was often different. Slavery’s real basis was ...