Essays on Manhood

I am a man. I know this because of the following reasons. First, the most obvious reason I consider myself a male is that I possess almost all physical features that are considered manly. These include the masculine physique, deep voice, beard, and mustache; just to mention but a few. Secondly, being the natives of Saudi Arabia, we are technically Muslims; and according to our culture boys and men put on thobes, outfits specially designed for hot-weather regions. Since I do have and wear them, it gives me another reason to count myself as one. Additionally, I always handle ...

Some of the long-term factors that encouraged the US to involve in foreign affairs during the late nineteenth century are geographic isolation of the country from Europe and Asia, diversities of ethnicities in the US due to greater migration, industrial and mercantile interests of US, European conditions in the 19th century and many others (Tucker 302). Other factors that influenced the US to engage in foreign affairs include indifferences to foreign relations during the late nineteenth century, such as abolition of the State Department, moral superiority of the US towards Europe, emergence of the US as the superpower of ...

CHAPTER THREE: MAN AND ARAB MASCULINITY

As Carabí and Armengol (2014) show in their study, Arab masculinity is a hybrid concept entailing adherence to traditional patriarchal values held for centuries in the Arabic world and supported by the religious component of Islam; however, it also “allows liberal values” which might contradict this traditional patterns. Cultural and societal representation of Arab masculinity is thereby rather complex and might emerge in a variety of contexts including family and society on the larger scale. In these representations, stereotypical images of man in traditional Arab context might enclose controversies and correlations between liberal-secular masculinity and conservative masculinity image entrenched ...

[Class Title]

Introduction The novel, ‘City of Thieves’ by David Benioff, presents an opportunity to analyze the concept of masculinity under the circumstances of war. What is significant in this literary work is that manliness emerges under extreme adversity, which is often considered as the very test of being a man. Although Benioff’s ‘City of Thieves’ is fictional, the circumstances are realistic and is based on a historical incident that happened around six decades ago in Leningrad, which is the present day St. Petersburg in Russia. Becoming a man is one of the most confusing rhetoric there is. ...

Thesis

Toni Morrison's novel, Home, is an allegory that uses post-Korean war setting to paint a picture of the never-ending human conflicts like war, racism, trauma and manhood. Despite many years as the world’s superpower, America has not yet found a solution for world conflicts. Despite fighting in Korea, where he lost his homes, Frank Money has not yet learned how to be a man, and he thinks of Lotus, where he was grown, as a place worse than any battlefield. The novel is a reflection of a struggle that never ends, no matter how someone, how a country ...

Masculinity also known as manhood is a set of behaviors, roles and attributes that are associated with men or boys in the society. Primarily, manliness is a social construct that is composed of both biologically-created and socially-defined factors. In Puerto Rico, a real man is exhibited by traits like courage, assertiveness and independence. The society in Puerto Rico has placed more emphasis on power and masculinity with great regards to responsibility and consequences. In Puerto Rico, the Machismo is a masculine concept that is associated with a sense of masculine pride. The man in this society is tasked with ...

For most people, it is difficult to believe that a woman would rape a man. Contrary to most people’s beliefs most men fall victim to incidences of rape by women. Rape occurs when is made to engage in sexual activity unwillingly or without consent (Masho and Anderson 99). A man can fall victim to rape if he is; impaired by alcohol or drugs, physically limited or handicapped, below the age of consent which in most states is between 16 to 18 years of age and coerced or physically forced by a woman. According to the Bureau of Justice ...

“Macbeth” is one of the greatest literary works of William Shakespeare. This play proves why Shakespeare is still the most influential English author. Shakespeare has tried to portray mordant psychosomatic and political effects when people do not hesitate in taking help of evil for fulfilling their aspiration of power. The play is believed to be written in the beginning of the seventeenth century but it still pleases people who love English literature. This paper intends to discuss the “Macbeth” and presents a succinct analysis of the play along with discussing all other related aspects.

The play takes place ...

Brief Template: J340 Creative Brief

Rebranding campaign for Mattel “Hot Wheels” toys, online banner. Communication Objective

“Hot Wheels” products are toys designated for kids in order to enhance their dexterity and ability of fixing cars, copying their fathers’ behaviors, which in the growing up phase are their role models. However, fathers become less interested in fixing cars nowadays and this situation directly impacts children who continue to imitate their parents, but just as their fathers, become indirectly less interested about fixing cars. The objective of this campaign is to make this old-school toy relevant again, so that kids to be attracted ...

Abstract 1

The subject of discussion of Mark Gerzon’ book A Choice of Heroes, in Midlife Quest, is the question of masculinity and its influence on contemporary man. Gerzon says that men, in their effort to emulate their heroes before their women, do so, unconsciously (p.414). This behaviour, he says, is largely a part of their childhood conditioning. All those who do imitate or try and act like their heroes don’t do so because they know them personally, but do so because of the influence the celluloid world has over them. Many people fall victim to the influence of the celluloid ...

Virginia Woolf's novel, Mrs. Dalloway, is considered by most to be a baffling read. This is partly because the novelist, Woolf, experiments with the technique of connecting the character's internal and external dialogues in the text. This is quite obvious in the author's characterization of Mrs. Dalloway or Clarissa, the protagonist of the novel, and Septimus. Many critics contend that both of these characters are a doubles. This idea, of course, comes from the “Introduction to the Random House edition of her novel” which states that, “‘Septimus, who later is intended to be her [that ...

Kimmel has managed to illustrate a critical point on society and masculinity. The idea that a “man” should always have a strong and countenance devoid of weak emotions like crying is valid to many societies today. Unconsciously, the society has become accustomed to the predictability of manhood that no one seems to focus on the emerging male stereotypes. As a male child grows, the family bestows on him certain levels of faith of manhood that synonymously coincides with the predictions of Kimmel. In my life as I grew up, for instance, my parents kept chiding any attempt of constant crying. Of course, they ...

Manhood in America: a cultural history is a well acclaimed book written by Michael Scott kimmel. American sociologist, Michael is a specialist in gender studies and a distinguished academician who has written several books and journals. He teaches sociology in the stony brook university and has rendered his services as an expert to several other educational institutes. This paper intends to discuss the Michael Kimmel’s book, Manhood in America: a cultural history and other related aspects of the book.

Michael Kimmel, in his book gives an insight on the men, manhood and masculinity in the changed scenario. In chapter 10 of his book ...

Things Fall Apart was written by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe and was published in 1958. The title foreshadows the tragedy in the novel. Achebe borrows the title from W B Yeats’ poem The Second Coming: ‘Things fall apart and the center cannot hold’. The phrase things fall apart is used to show the images of more general chaos that follows in the novel. The second phrase is a kind of declaration that “the centre cannot hold,” It is relevant to Achebe’s novel as the traditional structure of the society is challenged by the coming of missionaries and the white ...

In Kimberly Pierce’s 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, the true-life story of Brandon Teena (played by Oscar winner Hilary Swank), a transgendered man who attempts to pass for a biological man in rural Nebraska, is told. Over the course of the film, Brandon (born Teena Brandon) tries to fit in with a group of male friends he encounters, and continues to pose as a man in order to woo her friend Lana (played by Chloe Sevigny). However, by the end of the film, his friends find out about his anatomical femaleness and is raped and murdered by them. The film is commonly ...

Chuck Palahniuk’s debut novel Fight Club is one of the most well-known and incendiary novels about the postmodern male, describing a frenetic journey by the book’s unnamed narrator to reclaim his manhood. Over the course of the novel, the narrator pairs up with charismatic id figure Tyler Durden to achieve catharsis and reinvigorating his life through unlicensed ‘fight clubs’ in which characters can beat each other senseless in order to feel alive. The depictions of violence in the novel are gruesome and immediate, showing both their appeal to the characters and the underlying weaknesses in their ideology. In ...

Living in a foreign land while observing one’s cultural beliefs is one of the biggest challenge that the narrator of the intended had to face. Life in England was becoming more sophisticated even as he grew from a boy to a man. With wide spread discrimination based on his race as well as other struggles of education and earning a living made life quite unbearable for the young boy. Having come from a strict Indian background, Shaz's, Patel's, and Nasim face racial discrimination, which makes it hard for them to survive in the English culture. Apart from the fact that the narrator is ...

Rites of passage between Malaysian and Brazilian adolescents

Cultures in all parts of the world practice different and unique rites of passage. For a young people to be acceptable in any given social group, they are required to undergo certain rites of passage, which become their transition period from adolescence to adulthood. The rites of passage among many cultures in the world help in separating or distinguishing boys from men (Virtanen, 2012). Rite of passage is a concept that is used to help explore other areas and in the description of other various milestones in the life of a given individual during transition to any other stage, which includes change ...

A review of the Deacons for Defense: armed resistance and the civil rights movement. By Lance Hill (2004) The Deacons for Defense is a historical text authored by Lance Hill. Hill used this book to define the historical moments explicitly at the time when people of African origin were struggling to fight for their civil rights. He rightly calls the events that transpired during the time of the Deacons for Defense “the myth of nonviolence”. The book is based on an array of credible and impressive sources, which increases the chances of creating an accurate account of the historical ...

America is broad in various contexts. As a matter of fact, America can be considered a melting point of all the world cultural, historical and political influence. America has to mince all these different yet diverse cultures that present themselves every year into this country that has become a worldwide dream destination for many. That said, one of the culture that has become dominant in American way of life related to the peoples’ physical appearance especially, the men. Granted, Masculinity has become a prominent topic of discussion among people in American culture especially the youth, masculinity has been viewed from a specific lens. ...

Many men in the society usually strive to achieve recognition of their manhood whilst some even do the unthinkable in a bid to attain manhood. Consequently, some people think that one can only achieve manhood through being violent, controlling, inconsiderate, and unkind. Nevertheless, some men are blinded by their pride and hatred and thus fail to realize that real manhood can also be achieved through the greatest acts of humility and humanity. In trying to understand this concept, Theodore Roethke’s poem “my papa’s waltz” and Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” will be used in this paper. Roethke’s “my ...

12 Years a Slave Jamestown, Virginia discovered success with the cultivation and export of tobacco to England in 1619. The profit was so high, two imports were arranged: 20 black men for labor and 90 women from England for brides. This is the beginning of slavery in America (Innercity.org 2014). The brutality of slavery was depicted in art, photographs, literature, and journalism. While many slave owners treated their slaves well, history remembers beatings, rape, murder, and splitting families apart. The debate at the time was whether Africans were animals, human, or a blending of the two. The argument was decided ...

Written by Robert V. Remini, “The Jacksonian Revolution” revolves around the ascension of Andrew Jackson to Presidency and in turn, the launch of American politics’ transformations. After a History in which only the societies’ aristocrats governed the political sphere of the country, Jackson’s decision to vie for the presidential seat was shocking to most Americans (132). In addition, Jackson's decision was defilement of all of the Founding Fathers’ expectations about the country (132). Thus, otherwise dubbed the “Age of Jackson”, the “Jacksonian Era” of between 1828 and 1848 (132) saw the American government pay more heed to the ideologies ...

The evolution of Frederick Douglass from a slave to a man is evident in “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.” As a documentation of slavery in Antebellum America, mainly in the south, thoughts of freedom appear as the redeeming feature for the blacks. Born into slavery, Douglass gives his readers insight into how slaves lived under the rule of the whites as his owners send him from one farm to another courtesy of his masters’ whims. However, unlike most of the slaves, Douglass portrays his need to be free throughout the book by questioning the perceptions of the white Americans and ...

Introduction

- The desires and ambition of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth drove them to commit the most hideous act. - Innocent thoughts and ambition become corrupt when you cast aside your moral judgment. - Loyalty and kingship replaced by the sweet taste of success. - Thesis statement: Lady Macbeth, unlike her husband, is unscrupulous. Her strong nature overpowers her husband’s forgiving nature and causes him to think evil. She becomes the most ruthless female, committing one act after another leaves her satiated with blood.

Body

A. - Macbeth questions the three Witches predictions (“All hail, Macbeth, that ...

Introduction paragraph

Thesis: Lady Macbeth is the most important character in Macbeth because she tries to act like God, she has a flaw that the audience can identify with and that she stark raving mad.

I: Lady Macbeth Tries to be God

- Hannibal quote - Similarity to Lady Macbeth - What being God entails - Manipulates Macbeth – questions his manhood

II: Lady Macbeth’s Tragic Flaw

- She’s a human being - Audience can identify with her flaw - Makes her so memorable - Everyone has thought about killing someone

III: Lady Macbeth Goes Stark Raving Mad

- Duncan looks like her father - She empathizes with her victims, even though logically she shouldn’ ...

The youthful desire of trying out new experiences and living thrilling adventures for sparkling a life full of adrenaline is what drove Peter Fromm to go into the wilderness, spending seven winter month in Montana/Idaho snowy surroundings. Fromm perceives wilderness as a novelty, as a challenge and as an adventure. He is eager to experience this adventure for living on his own the charm and other particularities of wilderness that he only read about in books that romantically describe the living in the wildlife. In a way, “Indian Creek Chronicles: A Winter Alone in the Wilderness” tells the autobiographic story of a boy that ...

Questions: Modern Japanese Literature

Question 3 In Oe's The Catch and Banana's Lizard, themes of trauma and salvation are addressed in both tales. Both short stories grab the reader's attention immediately, and both short stories are fast-paced as they explore themes of salvation and redemption in different ways. In The Catch, the protagonist, a small Japanese boy who lives in a small rural village during World War II, befriends a prisoner-of-war, an African-American soldier. Throughout the story, their relationship gradually develops into a kind of trusting friendship. The story is told through the eyes of the boy whose nickname is "Frog". As the story progresses, ...

Introduction

In almost every country, in the world, it is evident there is gender inequality. Even though, the problem varies in degrees depending on the age groups and across countries. According to Lorber (2010, p.67), there are many good reasons as to why the inequality gap should be closed; this is because it is good for both girls and boys. Gender stereotypes as well as inequalities usually set back Women and girls as well as men and boys. They learn this when they are very young age and a variety of factors influence them. The problem of gender may, however, be ...

Fiction and drama often deals with how characters deal with their dreams and aspirations; often, characters sabotage themselves and prevent themselves from achieving their dreams, while other times the world they live in keeps them from having what they want. The American Dream means many things for different people, but its common conception is the idea that people can achieve social mobility and prosperity no matter what they start with, if they work hard enough and seize opportunities (Cullen 191). For African-Americans in the 20th century, the American Dream itself was much harder to achieve than for whites - ...

Sexual consent is a concept shrouded in mystery in modern times. It has become increasingly difficult to identify sexual acts guided by mutual consent by the partners’ involved, implied consent, and outright rape. Kate Harding in her article ‘How Rape in Pop Culture Became a Matter of Opinion’ holds the opinion that the notion of rape in pop culture depiction is diluted to the opinion of the individual. Cases of portrayed rape are left to the discretion of individual interpretation, thus, according to Harding, subjecting female victims of sexual assault to normalized abuse, in the face of popular opinion. James ...

Organization

Plot Synopsis The man who was almost a man is a short story written by Richard Wright. Wright is an African American novelist and portrays the lives of black Americans and their experiences. The story is of an African American seventeen year old Dave who desires to own a gun which is will earn him the respect he deserves as a man and is no longer a child. He does procure a gun from a local store and happens to possess a pistol finally (Brandt). The problem arises when he accidentally shoots a mule, jenny that is owned by his boss Mr. Hawkins. Dave continues to lie ...

Introduction:

America has a wealth of literary heritage which begins from the earliest days of English and Scottish-Irish settlement and as the nation continued to evolve, the literary canon continued to expand accordingly. With mixed races being part of the national makeup for several decades, it was only natural that literature from this sector of the population would begin to infiltrate the American literary American makeup alongside other genres such as the Asian and African American genres.

Mixed race literature as compelling non-fiction

One of the finest examples of mixed race literature is Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams of my Father’ which demonstrates a special longing for a father that ...

Audiences and readers around the world have been thrilled by Shakespeare’s dark and sinister Macbeth for the last four centuries, and not without reason. Various scenes of parts of scenes, character developments and dialogues or soliloquies in Macbeth are particularly powerful, impactful or full of meaning and combine to make Macbeth the great, epic and enduring work that it is and places the characters of Macbeth and, to some extent, Lady Macbeth, in league with some of the greatest, richest and most complex characters in theatre history. The play, after opening upon the three witches in a sinister ...

Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s literature works, a play involving the character Macbeth of Scottish origin and his wife Lady Macbeth. The play starts with the successful story involving the win by three Scotland generals over their foes from the nation of Ireland, Macbeth being among them. This shows the nobility and loyalty that Macbeth had towards his king and country because he was willing to die for his country in the battle field fighting his countries enemies (SparkNotes Editors). Despite all of Macbeth’s achievements he met his downfall which was mainly contributed by the interferences of his ...

Many scholars admit that the study of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an exploration of the American society. The book revolves at the very heart of the American physical geography, political beliefs, and moral consciousness. In addition, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn probes readers to redefine the meaning of the conventionally held perceptions about civilization, freedom and the concept of right and wrong. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885 and documents the stories of a pre-civil war society and the controversy over slavery. The central conflict is the permeable idea of freedom is questioned in relation ...

Though the feminine social construct has widely been examined in the past, the masculinity construct has largely been ignored. The Tough Guise shows Katz’s enthusiasm for encouraging media literacy with regard to violence and what he refers to as the masculinity crisis. The film provides a clear insight about the role of media in promoting the societal perspectives of masculinity and the crisis that this construct provides to the society. In the film, Katz focuses on the high school and college students and focuses on the relationship between the imagery of pop culture and the social perception with regard ...

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy”. - Martin Luther King J.r. It is not difficult for a man to decide what he wants his life to be, what’s difficult is figuring out the things that he is willing to give up in order to live the life of the person he chose to be. A son may choose to be to be the person his father was once was, for a father is a hero to a son seeking to ...

Coming of age and making the transition from child to man is one of the most difficult experiences a person ever lives through. One of the hardest elements about this is that it is the first major change. There is no former frame of reference to look back on. There is no concept that the smallest of errors will not have lifelong consequences. There also is no understanding of how thoughts, whether acted upon or not indirectly shape our actions. Araby by James Joyce and Nobody Said Anything by Raymond Carver both address that transition, and the attendant feelings ...

In the book The Decline of Men, Garcia instigates his discussion of the American male’s loss of power precisely at the Burning Man Festival. In an eye-opening exploration of today’s American manhood, Guy Garcia elaborates on how the majority of the men are so much struggling to actually redefine the true meaning of being a man in today’s world is. Packed with informed pop culture and startling statistics and illustrated in the entertaining style for which Guy Garcia is known, he comprehensively sheds light on a problem that has seemingly wreaked havoc on the American family urging both ...

English

- Introduction The late twentieth century has become the “'age of the image” in the sense that gender roles has affected the stereotypical representation of men and women. McDermott and Schwartz argued that the gender role journey theory is suited to comprehend how men and women adapt their gender role identities in society (202). At the same time, media has presented a theoretical framework in the manner men traverse from positions of acceptance of the conventional gender roles to feminist activism and gender role supremacy. To be able to have a deeper understanding of the gender role journey over time, ...

Summary

Introduction

Orenstein in this piece of writing have expressed the feminine gender to be rooted and based on the physiology of the female sex. Her argument of relating the lives of women to the feminine gender was cause by breast cancer struggles she went through. The author has generalized personal experiences to reflect the lives of all women in the society which is the reality of life therefore may not be practical especially in the modern world. She expressed the biological identity of women really shapes and affect the lives of women.IN real life the biological identify makes no ...

In Fight Club (Fincher, 1999), the unnamed narrator (Edward Norton) is shaken up from his upper-middle class life of white-bread malaise by an anarchistic, charismatic figure named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), with whom he starts a series of unlicensed boxing clubs. These clubs are meant to shake up the meaningless, droll lives of disenfranchised men who do not get the chance to be masculine anymore. Fight Club addresses issues of masculinity and consumerism, while determining whether or not the kind of extreme philosophy Durden espouses is the right answer. This is all done in a wonderfully stylistic way, with slick, music-video ...

- INTRODUCTION The legend that queer history takes place in year 1969 sees a diversity of practices. The ridiculous, traditional form is that queer societies didn't occur back beforehand the '60s ruined our morals. This is certainly a precise manifestation of a more general theory lodged in the historic mind of several North Americans that the misrepresentation in our ethos of the 1950s denotes a picture of an established and enduring ways of existing that were criticized by the decadent '60s, and that there is an unavoidable cultural gap between those with reliability to nostalgia for the previous and those devoted to ...

So what do you expect to find in a play written hundreds of years ago but is still read with unrelenting enthusiasm and interest as never before? What is that make this possible? Can you really tell the best way of presenting a play in which a character, cheered by his over ambitious wife, kills people mercilessly in order to gain power and safeguard it? These are some of the questions that you get answered as you read Macbeth, a Shakespeare’s play .In my analysis of this play, I am going to discuss some major characters ,themes and stylistic devices that I ...

Introduction

One of the darkest plays of William Shakespeare, “Macbeth” is a poem that holds a significant artistic and symbolic power, striking by the brutality and violence of the murdering acts committed by Macbeth and his wife, which are, in the end, the results of uttered prophecies. The poem imposes a note of dark mystery and an estate of anxiousness, because of the murderers committed by Macbeth, which indicate the force of evil taking over the human nature through rage, despair, thirst for power, violence and agony. Likewise, the presence of the unnatural elements (the three witches and their prophecies, the ghosts of ...

The Myths of Manhood is an article which attempts to demystify some of the things which young men are taught about manhood. Using a casual tone, the author debunks the myth that a man has to be mean in order to stamp his authority. The author also puts across the point that men can as well be gentle without having to put a fake brave face. Although readers of both genders can read the article, it is specifically addressed to men because the writer intends to demystify some things which men have a misconception about. To persuade the reader, the author uses a variety ...

Introduction

Literary techniques employed in “The Pioneer” belong to the genre of historic romance. Historical in sense of, it is set in a previous time period whereas romance since it is set in realm of fancy of the people and places. The themes employed in chapter XVII brings up the role of the characters and literary techniques through dialogues, setting, resolution, and use of ringe notes. There is a theme of rivalry, the chief, Billy Kirby and leather-Stocking had a long existed jealous on their point of skills. They had a comparison of their success in various hunting to end up their rivalry ...

This sculpture which is one of the most original in African works of the time. It is dated from 1800 to 1850 and comes from a period of intriguing self-discovery for the African continent. The common theme that the figures explore is the familial one where the man is carrying a quiver on his back while the woman is carrying a child on hers. In a sense these are the roles which have to be followed in African society where the man carries out his work as a hunter which provides for the family while the woman is left to raise the children according ...

Introduction

This is actually a book written by Michael Kimmel and published in 2008. It covers culture for the young men transitioning from the adolescence to adulthood. He in fact interviewed 400 men between 16 to 26 years and observed a certain trend whereby these young men increasingly delayed their adulthood. He notes that in the year 1960, approximately 70% of the American men had by the time they reached 30 years, finished their educations, found themselves a partner and started to work. By comparison, in modern times not more than a third a third of men achieve these milestones by their thirties. He ...

Baldwin’s Go Tell it on the Mountain, and Morrison’s Home are two Interesting to read literatures. Each book brings its own uniqueness to the table. Indeed, in both books, there is a brilliant course in regards to exploring their examinations of race, family, and religion. It is obvious that Baldwin is clearly the frankest of the two (however not essentially the most prevailing for that). However, America’s most celebrated novelist, Nobel Prize-winner Toni Morrison lengthens her philosophical point of view on our history with his story of redemption. Baldwin's first main masterpiece, a story that has founded itself ...

In the scholarly article, Brubaker and Johnson (2008) hypothesize that advertisements for male sexual enhancement drugs appeal to males by creating an artificial crisis and then offering a solution. As stated by Brubaker and Johnson, the so-called crisis is “loss of power, control and the ability to dominate; the solution is a larger and more powerful penis that will give men back their sense of manhood” (131). They argue that the advertisements “reassert hegemonic ideals, i.e. the othering of, and domination over, women and phallocentrism” (131). The authors conducted a study of Internet website advertisements. They used a “modified snowball sample” (Brubaker and ...

The Byron Hurt documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes explores themes of masculinity and social messages in hip-hop and rap music, interviewing many prominent rappers in the industry and breaking down the messages and cultural standards that rap culture brings to men (black men in particular). Hurt's messages involve recognizing the sexism, homophobia and stereotypical aggression inherent to today's rap culture, and the barriers that prevent more socially conscious messages from coming through. Examining these types of issues is important, due to media's astounding influence on our behavior; recognizing the bad things men do in the name of masculinity ...

Males of Asian descent have got an unpleasant rap in mainstream movies from all over the world. If they do not get depicted as a type of caricature, then they will often be stereotypes that they are humble as well as unassuming, the kind of people who will stick around somewhere in the background. Also, film directors view them as those who are especially not outgoing, and an exact antonym of the terms “handsome” and “sexy.” This kind of mentality perhaps became popular because there are extremely few famous Asians in the United States, from which most of the films ...

This book is so captivating because I found a lot of interesting sections that kept me keep on reading and analyzing it. However, the most interesting thing I learnt in this book is the commitments of the leading protagonists: Joe Ehrmann and Jeffrey Marx. These are two former friends who have been together for more than four decades now. What perplex me most are their amazing perceptions towards life. Even if they have taken different paths of life now, they shame a similar world view and are out to positively transform the lives of the youths. It was so interesting ...

Gender roles and gender-related stereotypes are often depicted in literary works. For example, Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” could be considered misogynistic because it promotes the stereotype that women are the root of all evil, manipulate men for their selfish needs, and create chaos because all female characters in the play show that form of behavior. On the other hand, it is also possible to notice the lack of stability and logic in the main character Macbeth who is depicted as a naïve, indecisive, and dependent character. In “Candide,” it is possible to notice that Voltaire depicts the vulnerability and ...

Gender roles and gender-related stereotypes are often depicted in literary works. For example, Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth” could be considered misogynistic because it promotes the stereotype that women are the root of all evil, manipulate men for their selfish needs, and create chaos because all female characters in the play show that form of behavior. On the other hand, it is also possible to notice the lack of stability and logic in the main character Macbeth who is depicted as a naïve, indecisive, and dependent character. In “Candide,” it is possible to notice that Voltaire depicts the vulnerability and ...

The myth of the Gorgon Medusa and her slaying by the brave and handsome hero, called Perseus, is one that has inhabited literature and art ever since the ancient times. This is because it carries within itself all the essentials of mythological, iconographical schemata: the handsome hero, the terrifying monster and the final salvation of the beautiful damsel in distress. It is a magical story of a quest of a young man, who reaches manhood through his decapitation of the monster Medusa.

This “Medusan” theme will continue to enchant artists, becoming something of an iconograph, especially for the Romantics: “This glassy-eyed, severed ...

Religious traditions are the means by which a religion is practiced and acknowledged within a religious culture. In a religion, there are many customs and practices that can seem arbitrary to jaundiced eyes; however, these traditions can play vital roles in the continuation and teaching of a religion and culture. In this essay, we will examine the varying elements of religious tradition, and what significance they hold in teaching a culture to someone in that religion. Religions traditions are connected to the sacred by providing a spiritual connection between necessary actions of a society and a perceived spiritual allegory.

Religious traditions are meant to provide teachings, doctrine ...

For centuries, the fairy tale has been the cornerstone of imaginative children's fiction - the genre provides a canvas by which amazing tales can be told. The fantastic becomes possible in fairy tales, and for many, childlike wonder can be recaptured by the simple act of reading one. However, in many children's books, there is a pervading theme of maturation, and "growing up"; in these stories, the fairy tale land the characters inhabit is shown to be fleeting and transient. Two such fairy tales - Ursula Dubosarsky's The Red Shoe and Neil Gaiman's Stardust - frame the fantastic story they tell ...