Essays on Decadence

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (1995) is as creative just like it is ironical if the current contemporary efforts around the globe are put into context. The Dystopian perception that dominates the novel makes it attractive to present and future readers. Several themes emerge from the story through prominent characters such as Lauren and Mrs. Sims. This essay offers analysis of various topics in the novel while laying emphasis on how the lack of effective community guidance and poor leadership can break or make a state. The essay delves into how poor leadership can erode past gains in ...

Religion has been the foundation of arrangement and strife of social orders, where both viewpoints make a noteworthy commitment to our comprehension of society. However, a new form of religion known as capitalism religion has developed which is now the source of hope and fulfilment for people in the modern world. This exposition will look into a structuralist and interpretative position on the effect of the capitalism religion on society and how religion can be used to help people understand it as a false hope. The scholars that will be utilized are Karl Marx, Max Weber, and David Loy. ...

Roman Decadence in the Late Empire

According to history, it is not a secret that the Roman Empire once fell, it was considered to be immoral as well as weak during this time. Decadence is coined with the fall of the empire and is therefore thought to be the sexual excesses that happened. People were more focused on having orgies mostly with their families specifically, sibling; the Romans were also doing heinous activities such as eating parts of animals like the tongues of humming birds, feeding Christians to the untamed lions and they even had the courage to poison their children, partners, spouses and parents ( ...

Carlo Scarpa was a prominent Italian architect previously active during the early twentieth century and one of the pioneers of modernism in architectural design. He was born in 1906 in the beautiful city of Venice, a place well-known for its old Renaissance architectures, majestic canals, and gondolas. By the time he was only two years of age, his entire family migrated to Vicenza, a county part situated on the northeastern part of the Italian peninsula. It was here that he spent much of his early childhood to teenage years; he also attended a local high school specializing in technical ...

What is Modernism? How and why this style gained popularity amongst the nations around the world? What does Modernism emphasized that other art movements lacked? One of the pioneers of the Modernist movement was the French architect Le Corbusier when he designed buildings that mimic the simplistic classical Greco-Roman architecture whose colors were limited to monochrome pigments (Goldhagen 145). In his book, Towards New Architecture, he argued that structures such as buildings and houses were meant to shelter as well as to protect the people living inside. Using this fundamental principle, Le Corbusier attacked the lavish and non-functional designs ...

The movie “Julie & Julia”, released in 2009 raises a number of issues or problems, faced by everyone in one’s daily lives. Someone encounters such a period as that of Julie sooner, someone later, but all the people will certainly face a number of identical problems ("Julie & Julia (2009)"). This film is a kind of generalization of the most pressing issues, arising in the process of finding oneself in the world. One person finds himself in the literature, music, while others find themselves in medicine, cooking and so forth. And no one has a right to judge anyone for ...

Le Corbusier was an architect famously revered for his modern building designs. Despite the fact that he lived in an era wherein horse-drawn carriages, gaslights, and restrictive society norms, he already envisioned a future in which architecture and art can break separately from its traditionalist origins. Le Corbusier was the second son of Georges-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris a Swiss watch engraver with his wife, Marie-Charlotte-Amelie Perret whose father was also a craftsman. They married in 1883 and after three years, Marie gave birth to their eldest son named Albert in February 6 1886 (Flint xvii; Weber 22). Le Corbusier was born ...

Le Corbusier was an architect famously revered for his modern building designs. Despite the fact that he lived in an era wherein horse-drawn carriages, gaslights, and restrictive society norms, he already envisioned a future in which architecture and art can break separately from its traditionalist origins. Le Corbusier was the second son of Georges-Edouard Jeanneret-Gris a Swiss watch engraver with his wife, Marie-Charlotte-Amelie Perret whose father was also a craftsman. They married in 1883 and after three years, Marie gave birth to their eldest son named Albert in February 6 1886 (Flint xvii; Weber 22). Le Corbusier was born ...

The novel begins with the protagonist Cruz, in the hospital bed. His actions in the past are brought through flashback as the novel move between the present and the past. We find that Cruz is a former soldier in the Mexican Revolution where he served there for a quite a long time. Cruz has never been good to the expectation of his career; in fact, he acquires most of the property he owns in a questionable manner. He is one of those guys who want to use the position they have to oppress others and satisfy his selfish wants. ...

CONTEXT AND COMPARISON OF

In reaction to the decadence and corruption so pervasive in the Roman Catholic Church, the Protestant Reformation sought to introduce an asceticism into the artistic world of its followers. Martin Luther, as well as others who followed him, advocated the destruction of art in churches, particularly images of saints, muted color schemes for the artwork that remained, and an emphasis on images either of Jesus or of contemporary leaders and heroes of the movement. Joseph Koerner’s book The Reformation of the Image (2004) compellingly shows how visual art became indispensable to a religious movement built on words. In a time ...

T. C. Boyle’s famous story, “Greasy Lake”, tells the story of three boys, aged nineteen. These boys, who lived in the days when the boys generally “cultivated decadence like a taste” (Boyle 168), went to Greasy Lake because “everyone went there”, to watch “a girl takes off her clothes”. At the beginning of the story the narrator sets the tone of the story, hinting that what is going to happen in the story will be quite bad. The structure of a story is normally analyzed by examining the beginning or exposition, conflict, climax, denouement, etc. A look at how this story ...

Abstract

Reality is a powerful source of inspiration for writers in the 20th century. For Raymond Carver the American reality of the working class served as the main source of inspiration for his short stories that fall into the dirty – realism literary style. A technique that is representative for this current and that Carver subtly masters in his short stories is the insertion of objects into the narration, attributing them the value of reflecting the reality through familiar descriptions of the working class American society’s lifestyle. In Carver’s narration the objects tell stories, unite people in the same universe ...

Executive Summary

Mythology typically elucidates historical events of ancient characters to represent beliefs, practices, natural phenomenon and institution that are related to religious beliefs and rights. The mythology had an immense impact on art and literature during the Decadence era as it gave rise to the concept of Symbolism in Europe. Decadence was an era towards the end of Eighteen Century that emerged during the industrial revolution in Europe. Decadence is heavily linked with symbolism. Symbolism links the ancient mythology with imagination to form art and literature. Symbolism is an artistic and literary movement that emerged in the group of few ...

Introduction

Oscar Wilde lived a short life: it was shortened, blighted and humiliated - social hypocrisy, the letter of the law and the arrogance of decadent behavior of the poet. Oscar Fingal (according to some sources - Fringal) O'Flaherty Wills Wilde was born on October 6, 1854 in the family of Sir William Wilde, Dublin ophthalmologist with the world-famous author of dozens of books on medicine, history and geography. "The dirtiest man in all of Ireland" this was saying about him. However, in England, he was appointed court surgeon, and later made a lord. In Stockholm, he was given the Order ...

A – Allure – It has to emanate an aura of uniqueness and refinement that is irresistible and makes anyone want to try out. B – Boldness – Even in discrete appearance, it can never go unnoticed to the client, or anyone who comes in contact with it. C – Customization – Because all the care for the client has to fit every aspect of the client’s taste and personality. D – Decadence – Because the client must feel like no more luxurious, or better place could possibly exist. E – Elite – Makes the client feel like he/she belongs to that very strict ...

The United States has had controversial topics among them being the same sex marriage bills. Different political parties have sharply aired their differences on the gay marriage issues. The existing laws have thus left the states to be the principal determinants of whether gay marriage is legal or illegal within their borders. Both exponents and proponents of the legalization of gay marriage have strong convictions and reasons as to how same sex marriage should be handled in society. This paper however embraces the latter view that same sex marriage should not be legalized because it is not about sexuality or ...

Same sex marriage has been a controversial topic in the United States. Various political parties, states and individuals have sharply differed on the topic of gay marriage. The existing laws have allowed states to be the principal determinants of whether gay marriage is legal or illegal within their borders. Both exponents and proponents of the legalization of gay marriage have strong convictions and reasons as to how same sex marriage should be handled in society. This paper however embraces the latter view that same sex marriage should not be legalized because it is not about sexuality or identity. Same sex marriage ...

Introduction:

Huysman’s novel is an interesting and almost fateful indictment of Parisian society which focuses on the artificial and artistic collections with several aesthetic conundrums although the end result is surely quite agreeable. Huysman examines the decline of the aristocratic Jean Des Esseintes who is a recluse in his own world of art and decadence with a retrospect of the past in the salons of Paris. In a way this novel is rather reminiscent of Marcel Proust’s ‘Remembrance of Things Past’ which also focuses on nostalgia and intellectual experiences. The main character Jean Des Esseintes is full of remorse and ...

1) Oscar Wilde Oscar Wilde's many poems, plays and novels poke subtle fun at the Victorian mainstream, addressing the faults and the problems inherent within that society. Many of his works deal with the decadence and beauty of the Victorian upper class, as well as how empty and duplicitous that society is. By painting detailed portraits of flawed and overly vain characters, he shows the Victorian aristocrat as someone nearly inhuman, and far from sympathetic. In many ways, it transcends the nature of the Victorian mainstream by holding a mirror up to it and pointing out its flaws, whether ...

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AUSTRALIA.

ABC & The Conversation Box **** Australia RE: Proposed Internet Censorship by the government-funded ABC and The Conversation The Australian internet censorship is protected by the censorship law that aims at controlling the content in the web that is viewed by Australians in Australia. The act was passed into law in 2000 and functions to: protect against terrorism, avoid children accessing porn, enable adults avoid offensive material, and block information that can be used to commit crime (LLC 64). Internet censorship procedures in Australia began in 1992 through the Broadcasting Services Act, ...

Ernest emHe

Hemingway’s novel The Sun Also Rises represents a drunkenness-infused, dissipated, and tragedy-stricken collection of antiheroic characters, adequately deemed the Lost Generation. Their postwar plight for meaning in a desolate wasteland of existence is a futile one, painfully aware of the fact that no baptism would wash away their sins. The psychological structure of these characters is equally marred by their profuse alcoholism and debauchery, and their ultimate tragedy is that the all but subtle myth of the generation they belong to would keep them in a perpetual state of psychological hell. The aftermath of the World War I challenged all the ...

French Mentality

Although history might seem a concrete science about events and their chronological order of occurrence, it is far from giving concrete answers and explanation of the reasons for those events to happen and their socio-cultural dimension of occurrence. Usually, historians explain events in terms of political reasons or military necessity or state interest, forgetting that those events were carried out by simple people that belonged to their specific socio-economic and cultural communities. Those people embodied their epoch and opportunity to choose their destiny. The main reason why Eugen Weber wrote this book was that he wanted to outline another dimension ...