Essays on Plight

When Helen Jackson wrote a report for The Bureau of Indian Affairs, on the plight of the Indians in southern California, she effectively controlled her feelings because the document was factual. Ramona, a popular novel, is the place where Jackson found a platform to let her emotions run free. Ramona is the story of a girl whose name is the title of the novel. The half Indian half white girl goes through a multiplicity of both emotional and physical journeys before the book comes to a semi-sweet end. In the book, Ramona is taken in by her foster mother’ ...

The Views of Disability in the Arab World and Its Barriers

Abstract
Disability is a term used to refer to a physical, mental, developmental or emotional impairment among human beings. Some impairment occurs and manifests themselves during birth or during the lifetime of a particular individual. Impairment results in a problem of the body structure and limits normal functioning of various organs in the body. Disability in most Arab countries is viewed as a social upheaval that has generated a lot of media attention more so from the Western media houses. Lacks of a proper awareness program in Arab countries have resulted in neglect and non-concern tendencies among family members ...

The theme on social change as depicted by Pancake is painted in a form of negativity. The social change in this novel has affected the lives of a minority in the novel. Pancake has used art in writing to sensitize on the issue of disregard of the minority populations. The population in this novel is exposed to ignorance and disregard. The minority population in this novel is facing the threat of losing the main source of their livelihood and their habitats. The aim of the novel by Pancake was well put across and sensitized. The issue of mountain top ...

1. While the video “Control Room” focuses on media and the 2nd Gulf War, what does it imply
about coverage of international issues in general?
The video “Control Room” is a documentary movie which challenges the audience regarding the truth about news reporting. The responsibility of the media in reporting and the authenticity of the news is the main focus in the movie. The movie follows the events unfolding at the Al Jazeera news network for the duration of the Iraqi war. It provides editing of information gathered and filtering of the same into news. The film focuses on ...

Critical review of the movie “The Help”

Synopsis of the movie
The Help is a 2011 motion picture directed by Taylor Tate and based on Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller under the same title. The movie’s setting is Jackson, Mississippi which was one of the most violent and dangerous towns for African Americans and consequently vehemently resisted the civil rights movement. The movie is based on the untold lives of African American women in their service to their Caucasian counterparts. The movie’s main characters are Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan and Aibileen Clark. Skeeter is an idealistic young lady who has just returned to her home from ...

Even if a young person looks at his or her own personal family history and genealogy, he or she will find that the lives of their ancestors and their own personal lives are entwined in the history, black history, of America. African American history is rich and expansive. The American black has contributory history, history in plight as well as in triumph and success. There is more to be discovered in the annals of black history than one could fit into eight pages. Thus, this paper will highlight short bursts of contribution, plight and triumph in each era important ...

The code of conduct thence, build by members of the two different gender namely male and female are given poignant preeminence since they have been inherently cultured to create into women a docile lam like character that places them under some helpless disposition of abuse by their male colleagues. It is this abhorred state of affairs that the writer tries to satirize in the exposition that are eminent in the stories thereof. The writer presents a female character who disabuses the mythology of female gender inferiority and separates with her abusive husband when the marriage life that she had ...

Introduction

The urge to survive and feed our families, stretch us to eke out for a living with our flesh and bones. Caught in the middle of all this is women who though physically do not match their counterparts; the males are pushed to a corner where they have to do the similar works to earn a living. The situation is often worsened when ones husband kick the basket and she has to provide for the family, report to the capitalist “bread” factories whose major interest is to multiply profits and then come back home with the “bread” which ...

“Seven Islands and a Metro” and “Bombay: Our City”

The United Nations reported in 2009 that by the year 2030, 41% of the population of India will reside in urban areas. Mumbai is one of one of the 20 largest cities in the world with a population of 2.21 billion in 2011. With almost twice the growth overall of the urban population, urban area slums are growing the most quickly (Reliancefoundation.org 2014). These types of housing conditions created by rapid population growth result in numerous problems: poor health conditions and more diseases, increased crime, lessened access to civic agencies, environmental degradation, increase in slum housing, and overcrowding. It ...

Introduction:

Since it became an independent country in 1953, North Korea or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea has been subjected to heavy scrutiny by the international community. The isolated country has always been reported to pressure South Korea into breaking the détente, continue production of its nuclear weaponry and recently, declare war against the United States. While the international community wishes to influence North Korea’s actions, the fact the country is isolated and information is very scarce makes the issue difficult to resolve. If the international community acted haphazardly towards the issue, North Korea may take ...

W.E.B DU BOIS
Du Bois grew up in New Victorian England where he flourished academically. He managed to join Fisk University, as opposed to his dream- Harvard University. It is at this university that Du Bois interacted with the children of former slaves. He identified with their culture and the oppression they had gone through. He further witnessed the oppression and racial discrimination while teaching in Tennessee. This made him to resolve to fight inequality and racial discrimination. He resolved to pursue further studies and was lucky enough to secure a scholarship at Harvard. Du Bois was raised by ...

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams has always been known as an experimenter, an innovator, a revolutionary figure in American poetry. Yet in comparison to artists of his own time who sought a new environment for creativity as expatriates in Europe, Williams lived a remarkably conventional life. A doctor for more than forty years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients, the America around him, and his own ebullient imagination to create a distinctively American verse. Often domestic in focus and "remarkable for its empathy, sympathy, its muscular and emotional identification with its subjects," Williams's poetry is ...

The immigration dilemma in the United States dates back to the time immemorial. Many of those who immigrate to the US do so in search of greener pastures, which they believe to find in the United States. In many cases, people immigrate due to suffering and dissatisfaction with their countries of origin. This may be as a result of war, famine or other inevitable factors. However, many of them end up facing unexpected challenges. Edward Park gives an insight into the dilemma faced by immigrants in the article Friends or Enemies: Generational Politics, in the Korean American Community. The ...

Introduction

In this discussion two articles have been selected for reflection. They are ‘Prisons for our Bodies: Closets for our Minds by Patricia Hill Collins (2004) and Keeping Sex in Bounds by Abby Ferber (2004). First a summary of both articles will be presented. Afterwards an interpretive analysis of gender and intersections will be explained. Thirdly, my personal reflections will be offered and finally an evaluation of how both articles articulate contemporary gender issues will be highlighted.

Summary of Articles

Prisons for our Bodies: Closets for our Minds - Patricia Hill Collins
In Prisons for our bodies –Closets for our Minds Patricia Collins ( ...

Part 1

Euripides’ Medea puts up a very strange and ambiguous idea of morality and justice. Even though Medea commits horrendous crimes we are made to question who exactly is the villain in the play. It makes us question the set patterns of justice. She is a witch who to some may only have lured her husband to herself through witchcraft, however because of the dramatic action that is taking place one is continuously forced to think about the other side of the story. Isn’t Medea being driven to do what she does? Wouldn’t most people simply collapse if ...

The movie tells the story of the murder of two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents in Oglala in 1975. It focuses on the trial of the three main suspects. Two of them were acquitted on trial while one was convicted of murder. The main focus of the movie is the trial of Leonard Peltier extradited from Canada to face the murder trial and subsequently convicted of the charge. The movie highlights several controversial issues. The primary issue is the race question and the secondary issue is the trial of what the producers believe is an innocent man. These two ...

‘Black Gold’ is film about the production of coffee in Ethiopia which is the known to be birthplace of coffee. It focuses on the plight of the Ethiopian workers who spend endless days and nights harvesting a crop that is their only source of income. The coffee industry is a multi billion industry that has seen the GDPs of International countries rise as the major exporters of this treasured commodity continue to remain impoverished (‘Black Gold’).

My take on the movie

With America being the country that consumes the most coffee in the world .This ...

Introduction

In the most traditional of African cultures, the duties of a woman’s role in society was never deemed as capricious, much less being awarded the honorary title of representation of an ideology known as ‘feminism.’ Yet, the memoir-enriched fictional novel, “So Long a Letter,” (Une si Longue Lettre – in French) by Mariama Ba inspired much hope for African women to convey the collective plight of their positions to the world. The book is remarkable in a number of profound ways. The book is a diary-type of letter written from the female protagonist Ramatoulaye her best friend from childhood, ...

DO WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF MEDIA INFOTAINMENT AND MELODRAMATIC REPORTAGE?

Introduction
For the past 4 decades, the role of the media has been in the process of transforming. Traditionally, the role of the media has been purely on performing an informative role concerning various events taking place across the globe. This phenomena is commonly known as the provision of hard news where the reporter presents the facts to the viewers they way they occurred. However, this is no longer the case, as the media is increasingly indulging in the provision of information as well as entertaining the society. The media houses have been shifting from the traditional methods of ...

ENTHOGRAPHY

Ethnography in the local area would entail a close look at the lives of homeless people in the vicinity. This is because homeless people are a part of society that everyone seems to have forgotten about. Nothing is done as far as their plight is concerned and they are met with resentment from other members of society who are relatively better off that they are. In order to be successful working with the local community leaders would be paramount. This is because the local community leaders are very fluent as far as the plight of the homeless people within ...

Race, Ethnicity and World War 1

World War 1 was one of the largest wars ever fought up until that time. Discussions of World War 1 often include topics such as the sides that different countries were on, their political positions, the economics that played a part in the war, and the weaponry. However, the subject of race relations during that time period has a significant place in the discussion of the Great War. Race relations throughout the world were affected by the war. Furthermore, race relations on a national level within the United States were also impacted by the war. Throughout this paper, I ...

Literature

Introduction
Since the beginning of the world, the female gender has faced suppression from the male section of the society. This has reflected in the literature, as well. Many authors, writers and poets, have used hard language to point out the wrong done against the women. The tailored language due to the dictatorial system by the mail dominance has been used in the literature works to give a message for the
Literature, on the other hand, has been the part of the world since its inception. Right from the beginning of the world, literary works have been proving elemental ...

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 ...

Analysis of “Riders to the Sea”

The poetic drama Riders to the Sea, written by John Synge, is a wonderfully lyrical and haunting drama about an Irish family and the relationship it has to the sea. Maurya, the matriarch of the family, loses the vast majority of her family to the sea, leaving her clinging to whatever hopes might be available to her that any of her family might still be alive. By making this play so poetic in tone, the presentationalism of Riders to the Sea draws the reader into the plight of the characters. Sunge’s low-key requiem shows the hardship of the ...

During the late 1800s, also known as the “Gilded Age” of the United States, there was a huge divide between the rich and the poor. Unlike the society of today, which admittedly still has a large class and income divide, there were no real programs that existed to protect the poor from the exploitation of the rich; in the Gilded Age society, there was massive economic growth in the United States, but it came at the cost of those who worked for the rich. Today, there are legislative protections and social welfare programs that exist to help the indigent ...

Women from the Lake of Scented Souls is a movie produced and directed by Xei Fei. The movie revolves around two families separated by deep divides of economic disparity. This is obvious  in the movie where the family of Huanhuan is on one side of economic hierarchy the poor one, and that of the main character, Xiang is on the other side of economic hierarchy, the prosperous one. The movie puts great emphasis on the sad plight of Chinese women under a male dominated society characterized by a feudal ethical code.
Feudal ethical code is ripe throughout the movie ...

English

Maps can be very instrumental in the description of a given geographical period. The most interesting thing about this description is that it is seemingly limitless. This means that maps can be used to describe a wide range of factors that exist in a given geographical zone for example population or the structure of the land in terms of topography and the general outline of the structures of the land if they are natural or manmade. Thus maps are very instrumental as far as the description of a given place is concerned. The following essay focuses on a map ...

Introduction

It is a fact that the society in general has attempted to use different strategies to modify the distribution and circulation of movies. Some of these strategies have involved the tweaking of cinematographic techniques to advance the themes and aesthetic aspects of the movie, as a way of increasing film sales. Others have involved modifying the themes in the movie industry to penetrate the market and to conscientize the society towards a desired end. In itself, allegorization refers to the use of symbolic actions and figures or generalizations on human existence in literary works. Normally, allegorization is used to ...

Introduction

The caudillos of 19th-century Latin American history played an important part in the shaping and molding of Latin America into a state led by charismatic leaders who were able to assert their own considerable will over the people and enact social and governmental change. In the 19th century, the more iconic caudillos such as Simon Bolivar and Porfirio Diaz exerted tremendous energy and willpower to ensure that they shaped their respective countries in the ways they wanted. Even so, more modern revolutionary figures, even in their zeal to overthrow the classist politics of the caudillo, exerted a tremendous and ...

Johanna Smith’s letter to her father, from the colony of Virginia in 1660, represents a key primary source of historical value. Its exemplary evidence poignantly records the conditions, and plight of white indentured servants in the period. Johanna is afraid, doubting whether her father had even received her letters. This essay focuses the discussion on the working and labor-class conditions, particularly concerning the plight of whites under the auspices of indentured servitude. Johanna (1661) writes “The plantation grows good tobacco for England. I also tend to the small house garden, the kitchen, and the house. My labors are ...

1

An author with a distinctive style of writing, Susan Wright, is truly an inspiration to many. She attended John W. North High School, California and then won a scholarship to the University of Southern California. In the year 1984, she earned a M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts. Her M.F.A was for Poet and Writers. This program is one of the best in the world for creative writing, and Susan, herself, founded a program for creative writing & writing for performing arts at the University of California. (Straight)She lived in Riverside, Calif, as a kid, and heard the ...

The essay “Never Just Pictures” by Susan Brodo is one that uses objectivity as a style to present cultural criticism. Her reaction to other works such as the “cult of the cadaverous” is her way of showing her criticism to bizarre American cultures. On never analyzing just pictures, it is easy to think of popular advertisements that have influenced the lives of people. Advertising is one of the most popular ways in which manufacturers can increase awareness on their commodities. However, easy it is for advertisements to convince people in the public to purchase things, but they do not ...

Over the years, trade unions have been charged with the duty and responsibility of representing the interests and the general welfare of a worker or the employees. The term employee benefits include appropriate wages and human working conditions that the employer should provide while the worker if on duty. At the very minimum, all companies and firms have worker unions and trade unions, which are supposed to articulate the issues and matters of the works to the employers (Clegg, Fox &Thompson, 1985, P. 1919). It is regrettable to note and record that the work conditions and remuneration levels have ...

Gender is a social construct, not tied to sex in any neat, definitive manner and hence, amenable and open to (re)construction in order to challenge power relations. This paper explores gendered power relations in Euripedes’ Medea and Sophocles’ Antigone, in an endeavour to explicate upon how such relations manifest themselves in the text, and thereby, shape, influence and contribute to an understanding of the overwhelmingly misogynist and patriarchal social reality of ancient Greece. The paper also seeks to take issue with the use of language as mediating an elucidation and plurification of meaning/s in the text, and aiding ...

The stock market crash in October 1929 marked the beginning of the great depression (Rothbard, 209); one of the worst economic crisis to rock America, and indeed the entire world too. The great depression lasted for slightly over a decade, during which period economies around the world plummeted. With the declining economy, revenues, profits, and jobs also dropped (Murolo and Chitty, 187). Manufacturing and farming also declined, with the consequence that industries were forced to lay off some workers, and in some cases reduce the wages of the subsisting workforce. Even those with jobs were subjected unfavorable terms, especially ...

Arthur Miller was born in the house of a Polish Jewish couple in Harlem, New York City in 1915. In his book, “Timebends: A Life,” Miller mentions that the part of Harlem he was born in was quite modern and popular, but the Great Depression had already made its way in Brooklyn by the time was grown up. Since Miller was studying in the University of Michigan at that time, he had to a variety of physical labor to pay for his education. The above mentioned book is the only autobiography that Arthur Miller has ever written, but that ...

T.C Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain has been described variously as the most controversial yet timely novel of the current times, at least in the context of the American situation. The novel, which revolves around cultural, financial and social differences of two families, is a manifestation of the themes of poverty, illegal immigration, class conflict, xenophobia and social strife. Boyle wrote this book before 1996, and got it published by Vikings press at a time when California had voted on and the rejection of what was referred to as Preposition 187 – a bill that would restrict illegal immigrants’ access ...

Harriet Jacobs’ narrative demonstrates the life of a female slave. She is able to recount her life since she was a young woman. The narration highlights events that affected the narrator positively and negatively. These events vary from her escape from her cruel masters to how she ended up crippled for life. People are able to understand the dynamics of the tribulations and challenges that female slaves and slaves in general faced during her time. Frederick Douglas’s narrative demonstrates the life of a slave from a male’s point of view. His narrative is less personal compared to ...

Movie Analysis

Brave is an animated film based in fictional characters. The film is based in an old setting revolving around Princess Merida. The Princess is born of King Fergus and Queen Elinor. Merida realize that she was to be married of to a man she had not chosen. This was to enable her assume the role of her father as the king after he got injured protecting them from a bear attack. However, Merida flees her home after an argument with her mother. While in the forest she encounters a witch who vows to help her enable her mother to ...

Film Studies

The House I Live In is a compelling account of the manner in which America’s War on Drugs has devastates families and individuals especially those belonging to the minority community. It has targeted the poor and the jobless. The film portrays touching anecdotes of those directly impacted by drugs – be it the grieving mother to the drug dealer, the senator to the narcotics officer, the federal judge to the prison inmate. The film highlights this as a serious human rights issue and urges people to speak against the injustice taking place in this country.
The film in fact ...