Our Essays - Our Town, English-language Films, Thornton Wilder

Our Town By Thornton Wilder 1. Thornton Wilder was one of the most cosmopolitan and sophisticated of American writers. Born in the Midwest on April 17, 1897, he was educated in China, in Germany language schools, in America, and in Rome. He was thoroughly familiar with classical literature. In 1938 he wrote Our Town. In this play Wilder gained admiration for his serious philosophical concerns and use of theatrical techniques. When reading Our Town it is difficult to find one major conflict. The ideas imbedded behind the scenes deal with the importance of love, the continuity of human life, the beauty of life, and the meaning of life. The topic of love is seen many times throughout the play. All the characters are brought together by love however, each relationship and each love is different. Throughout the play it is very easy to notice the different loves. In act one love is centered on the family, the main characters seem to show unconditional love for one another. In the second act the word of love changes to romance, as Emily and George fall in love. In act three love is shown in the most unconditional way. Unselfish love that expects no return. As the play moved forward we work constantly reminded that like this one continuous cycle. The play itself begins with birth and ends in death. The stage manager also insinuates this idea by comparing generations. The strongest theme in Our Town is the beauty of life. This theme helps show us the wonderful happenings of everyday existence that most people will ignore and is only sometimes grasped by poets and saints. 2. After a short analysation of Our Town the plot reveals itself very easily. It has been said that Our Town has no plot at all, in that the stage manager tells a few stories about life in Grover's Corners and sends the audience on their way. The simplicity behind the plot is what brought excellence to the play. Wilder tries throughout the play to show the importance of ideas not personalities, and let each individual audience member gain something different from the play. The play begins while people are still entering the theater and being seated. A character known only as the stage manager enters a bare, partly lit stage. He begins rummaging around on stage acting as a stagehand setting up for the first act. The stage manager begins by telling you that you are in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, in 1901. The first action seen on stage is everyday activity between the Webbs and the Gibbses. Dr. Gibbs comes home from the hospital and the wives catch up on gossip while they work. The stage manager interrupts with some more information and the children come home from school. Time passes very quickly. The stage manager tells you that act two will be love and marriage. George and Emily by the end of the act will be wed. In the middle of this act they take you back to a scene from George and Emily's courtship. Act three opens in the graveyard; the stage manager tells you that nine years have passed. Emily has died and her grave is being prepared. Night comes to Grover's corners, and the stage manager wishes the audience a good night. 3. In Our Town, the actors have plenty of room for their own influences to fit in, because Wilder depicts types rather than individuals. All the people in Grover's Corners are individualistic. By doing this Wilder left room for each audience member to connect with each character in their own way. Emily Webb is the daughter of the editor of the town paper. She marries George Gibbs and dies giving birth to their second child. She is the girl who grows up during the play. Her speeches at the end of the play are very important George Gibbs, the son of Dr. Gibbs, is the boy next door who marries Emily. Both George and Emily represent typical American children. He is nice and polite, but not very bright. Throughout his whole life he was always lagging behind in maturity. Doctor Frank Gibbs is the loving father and husband every man wants to be. He is at total peace with his living conditions and life. Mr. Charles Webb is the editor of the local newspaper and enjoys studying Napoleon. As presented before the parents of George and Emily are also typical and alike. Julia Hersey Gibbs is Doc Gibbs's wife and the mother of George and Rebecca.

Free Essays on Educational Reform in America

of Paulo Freire, the information given or taught by the teachers. According to Paulo Freire we take information given to us by teachers and categorize the information away for later use. Freire contends that when knowledge is passed vertically from teacher to student in the banking concept the knowledge is stored in the brains and cataloged away. An inefficient way to learn that holds us back from reaching our full potential. We, the students, never question the validity of the information. We simply understand that the teacher is right and we take for granted what the teacher gives us. Who says that all information is actually valid, how do we know until we, the students, actually do it. If a student reads in a text that a certain plant when eaten tastes sweet and another tastes bitter the students are then supposed to take for granted that what the text says and what the teacher says are correct. So how do we genuinely recognize two different tastes? Test it out for ourselves in a group session. Researchers ... Free Essays on Educational Reform in America Free Essays on Educational Reform in America The United States has been teaching its students for countless years now. Today's education process in the United States is that of the banking process. Paulo Freire gives light to a new and advanced process by which America should learn by, one that will prove to be an investment for the nations society, and soon will. For years now we have been learning in Americas institutions for the first eighteen to twenty-five years of our lives. Always being taught by our teachers and professors, hoping that what they say will give us light to a hopeful future. Students generally sit in a classroom and absorb or bank, to put it in words of Paulo Freire, the information given or taught by the teachers. According to Paulo Freire we take information given to us by teachers and categorize the information away for later use. Freire contends that when knowledge is passed vertically from teacher to student in the banking concept the knowledge is stored in the brains and cataloged away. An inefficient way to learn that holds us back from reaching our full potential. We, the students, never question the validity of the information. We simply understand that the teacher is right and we take for granted what the teacher gives us. Who says that all information is actually valid, how do we know until we, the students, actually do it. If a student reads in a text that a certain plant when eaten tastes sweet and another tastes bitter the students are then supposed to take for granted that what the text says and what the teacher says are correct. So how do we genuinely recognize two different tastes? Test it out for ourselves in a group session. Researchers ...

Leave blank Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Leave blank - Essay Example However, under act utilitarianism, if for instance such a person were known to be a Pol Pot, and Idi Amin or a Hitler, then killing him would be justified in order to spare the many more they would have killed. The declining marginal utility of money refers to the change in total satisfaction derived from the purchase of one additional or incremental unit of a specific good or service, all else being equal (businessdictionary.com, 2010). In other words, as a person has more and more of one thing, his satisfaction with each additional unit of the thing becomes less and less. For instance, a beggar with nothing at all will be immensely joyful at receiving a dollar. A student will frown at the dollar, but will be happy with a hundred dollars. The office worker may be disappointed with a hundred dollar raise, but will welcome ten thousand dollars added to his annual income. Finally, a millionaire will think nothing of ten thousand dollars; he needs to acquire ten million dollars to feel the same satisfaction that the beggar felt with one dollar. (b) A principle of justice in transfer – A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding. (c) A principle of rectification of injustice - No one is entitled to a holding except by (repeated) applications of 1 and 2. Otherwise, holdings that are unjustly acquired or transferred, should be returns, victims duly compensated, past transgressions or injustices done by a government rectified, and so on. An example of the first principle is that a person may legally acquire an asset, such as a car, by purchasing it at good value. If the sale, however, is done under duress and for a price way below its true value so as not to be justified, then the right of ownership does not transfer, as in the case of a man who forces

A Basic Project Management Framework and the Proper Staff Literature review

A Basic Project Management Framework and the Proper Staff - Literature review Example The measures that had been put in place were not working, in July emergency measures were put in place.   This included free two-year extensions to passports as well as many other drastic measures.   One such measure was to add 100 staff to places issuing passports, and there was a phone line set up to deal with inquiries over the phone. In addition, more measures were put in place in order to improve the lines at passport offices.   Even though the Agency set up a goal of reaching the deadlines for processing passports by peoples’ dates of departure, there were still about a half of a grand missed dates of departure.   This is not to mention all of the hand-wringing going on by customers who were anxiously anticipating their passports being processed. Another aspect of this whole fiasco was that, throughout the ‘90s, some of the concerns of management were to lessen costs as well as make the organization more effective, at the same time keeping good quality cust omer relations.   Management thought that perhaps the Agency had done well for itself, improving in both of these senses of the word and that it boded well with other agencies comparable to itself—costs to the consumer being competitive with other places around the country. Regardless, both management and the Agency realized that they had not taken into consideration, along with the fact that there was increased demand for passports, that the Agency was working out of deference to how many passports were coming in at one time rather than taking into account the fact that the Agency was dealing with a higher demand.  Ã‚  

Holocaust Denial Essay Example for Free

Holocaust Denial Essay The holocaust is the term used to describe the period of persecution and extermination of European Jews by Nazi Germany. During this period, an estimated six million Jews were murdered in a series of state-sponsored killings. This was a culmination of a Nazi policy which was â€Å"the final solution to the Jewish question† (Michman, 2003) Why did Nazis Hate Jews? The Nazis hatred for Jews had been in existence for a long time, but it is after the World War 1 that it intensified. Prior to that, there had been strong feelings of anti-Semitism in Europe, mainly from the Christians. This is because of the Jews reluctance to embrace Christianity and their stubborn adherence to Judaism. (Israel G. 1990) After the First World War in which German lost, Hitler sought to find a plausible explanation for their defeat. Since at the time most banks and financial institutions were run by Jews, the Nazis blamed then for not availing enough funds for the war. They were viewed as being tight-fisted, corrupt and vile people, who could do nothing but destroy. This aroused feelings of hatred for the population, and the Nazi regime went on churning propaganda that blamed all of Germany’s problems on the Jews. (William, 1995) From another angle, the Jews were generally viewed as being an inferior race to the Aryans. Hitler believed that Aryans were the master race and even made a table of sorts which classified the races according to superiority in genes, with Aryans at the top, and Jews, Gypsies and Blacks at the bottom . The Nazis therefore saw the need to eliminate them from Europe to avoid weakening the racial purity of the Aryans (William, 1995) Holocaust Denial Holocaust denial is a term used to refer to the movement which seeks to deny that the holocaust really happened, and if it did, whether it occurred in the manner and scale that historians claim it did. It is a movement especially active in the United States, Canada, and Western Europe. However, the first people who sought to deny that the holocaust ever happened were the Nazis themselves. They attempted to destroy all evidence and even denied the proof that was presented at the Nuremberg trial. The organized version of the movement called Holocaust Revisionism was founded in 1979, by Willis Carto, founder Liberty Lobby, an anti-Semitic organization in America, when he incorporated the Institute of Historical Review. He is quoted as saying History is far too important to be left to history professors, pundits and politicians. History is power The leading activists for the IHR include Mark Weber, Bradley Smith and Fred Leuchter in the United States, Ernst Zundel in Canada, David Irving in England, Robert Faurisson in France, Carlo Mattogno in Italy and Ahmed Rami in France. However, among these, Bradley Smith, the self-styled director for the Committee for Open Debate on the Holocaust, CODOH, has been the most visible in the United States. He has placed series of ads in college newspapers since 1991 on behalf of CODOH. In one such ad, Bradley promises a $50,000 to anyone who can convince a radio station to air a ninety minute video to show that the holocaust was a hoax. The IHR also writes a journal called the Journal of Historical Review and holds annual conferences, which are used as vehicles for holocaust denial. http://www. adl. org/holocaust/introduction. asp The revisionists offer the following arguments to prove that the holocaust is a farce. First of all, they claim that there is no single document which has been identified, which expressly shows a master plan for the execution of Jews. This, according to them, is proof that the whole idea of Jewish annihilation is a creation by the Jews to gain sympathy from the world. ( http://www. remember. org/History. root. rev. html) Secondly, there were no gas chambers at Auschwitz and the other camps, so the allegations of people being gassed to death are mere lies. There are no documents about gas chambers of any kind anywhere so no mass murder of Jews in gas chambers took place. (http://www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/Holocaust/denial. html) Another reason why they deny the holocaust is because they purport that the scholars rely on the subjective testimonies of alleged â€Å"survivors†. These testimonies are highly biased and because there is no supporting documentation proving the genocide, these accounts can only be taken to be false. (Raul, 1985) The revisionists also claim that there was no net loss in the Jewish population in Europe between 1941 and 1945; therefore the claim that 6million Jews were killed cannot be true. According to them, there were not even enough Jews in Europe to account for the 6million victims. ( http://www. remember. org/History. root. rev. html) Furthermore, according to the revisionists, the Nuremberg trials were stage managed in favor of the Jews. They were a sham and were just held so that Jews could benefit from the sympathy they aroused. To further strengthen their arguments, the holocaust deniers have posed a series of questions that put in doubt the truth about the events that took place during the holocaust. To start with, they ask; it is said that the gas chambers were ventilated, and if so, wouldn’t the gas have killed the people outside as well. Since this didn’t happen, then surely, there was no such thing as Zyklon-B used to gas people to death. The next question is, if as many as 6million people were killed and cremated, then where did all the ash go to. It should be so much going by the numbers, and going by what is available now, the numbers must grossly be exaggerated. ( http://www. remember. org/History. root. rev. html) Moreover, Zyklon-B, which was allegedly used had to be dropped into the chambers by people, so, the people would have died from the gas themselves, wouldn’t they? In addition, how come the eyewitnesses to the gassings survived, why didn’t the Nazis eliminate them since they knew so much. That is not all; there was a swimming pool at Auschwitz, this means that the people there lived in luxury, so this could nit have been an extermination camp. Also, the death lists from there do not show that any person was gassed, and the number of people who died there was very small. Finally, since much of the area around Auschwitz has a high water table, then the said burning of the bodies in ditches could not be possible. (http://www. remember. org/History. root. rev. html) Some of the revisionists also pose counter-statements against the evidence given by the survivors. In regard to the deaths in Treblinka, the victims were said to have been killed using diesel fumes; so the revisionists say that fumes from a diesel engine are not enough to kill a person. This implies that the people could not have died as a result of inhaling the fumes. The doors of the gas chambers which used the engine exhausts would not withstand the pressure of the gas accumulating inside, which would lead to an explosion; how come that did not happen? ( http://www. remember. org/History. root. rev. html) In one of the most controversial denials, the revisionists assert that the Anne Frank diary was a fabrication written by someone else who wanted to further the Jews agenda. Did the Holocaust really happen? For every claim made by the revisionists, evidence has been produced to prove that the genocide actually happened. The Nazi regime itself had documents that clearly pointed out to their intention to massacre the Jews. Although they destroyed much of the documents, some remnants were later recovered. (Lucy, 1975)The evidence available includes written documents in terms of letters, memos, blueprints, orders, bills, speeches, articles, memoirs and confessions. There are accounts given by eyewitnesses, who include survivors, Jewish Sonderkommandoes, SS guards, commandants, local townspeople and some of the Nazis. (Michael et. Al, 1997) Indisputable evidence can also be gleaned from photographs taken by the military, press, civilians and survivors. Some of the camps where the mass murders took place still exist, some in almost original state. Inferential evidence is also available in form of population demographics which confirms the change in Jewish population. Therefore, it can be concluded that the evidence of the holocaust is so compelling that we cannot deny that it took place. (Michael et. al, 1997) REFERENCES http://www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/jsource/Holocaust/denial. html http://www. adl. org/holocaust/introduction. asp http://www. remember. org/History. root. rev. html Israel G. (1990), Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Volume 2, New York Lucy D. (1975) The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, New York Michman, D (2003). Holocaust Historiography: A Jewish Perspective: Conceptualizations, Terminology, Approaches, and Fundamental Issues. London Michael S. and Alex G, (1997) Denying History Who Says the Holocaust Never Happened and Why do they Say it? † University of California Press Raul H. (1985) The Destruction of the European Jews (Student Edition), New York William L. P (1995) Novelist of Hate, ADL Research Report. Brugioni, D. A. , Robert G. P. (1979) The Holocaust Revisited: A Retrospective Analysis of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Extermination Complex. (Central Intelligence Agency, Washington, D. C. )

Comparing Edna Pontellier and Adele in Kate Chopins The Awakening :: comparison compare contrast essays

Comparing Enda and Adele in The Awakening In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the setting is in the late 1800s on Grand Isle in Louisiana. The main character of the story is Edna Pontellier who is not a Creole. Other important characters are Adele Ratignolle, Mr. Ratgnolle, Robert Lebrun, and Leonce Pontellier who are all Creole's. In the Creole society the men are dominant. Seldom do the Creole's accept outsiders to their social circle, and women are expected to provide well-kept homes and have many children. Edna and Adele are friends who are very different because of their the way they were brought up and they way they treat their husbands. Adele is a loyal wife who always obeys her husband's commands. Edna is a woman who strays from her husband and does not obey her husband's commands. Kate Chopin uses Adele to emphasize the differences between her and Edna. Edna Pontellier is not a Creole, so her relationship with her husband is difficult. In her husband's eyes she has failed in her duties as a wife and as a mother to her own children. What Enda's husband expects from her is never what she does. Leonce comes home in the middle of the night and talks to Edna while she is sleeping. Then he tells her that Raoul one of their sons is sick and tells her to get up and check on him. Edna had never really had the desire to have children but she did anyway. She was not a "mother-woman" because she would rather be alone sometimes; she did not feel she had to be with her children twenty-four hours a day. If one Edna's boys "....took a tumble whilst at play, he would not apt rush crying to his mother's arms for comfort; he would more likely pick himself up"(16). Enda never felt that she fit in with Creole society because she "...most forcibly was their entire absence of prudery"(19). The Creoles' would talk about things such as childbirth and would flirt with others and not mean anything. Yet Edna would never dream of talking about her childbirth's with anyone or flirting unless she meant it. Creole women devoted their whole lives to their husbands where Enda was carefree and did as she pleased. She was carefree because she would go out onto the beach with only a sundress and a little hat on when she was suppose to be all covered up so she would not become sun burnt.

Discovering what Democracy Means

Democracy is most simply and conventionally defined as the type of government wherein the power rests in the people, or at least, majority of a nation’s citizens. A government that allows people to vote and choose their leaders, a Constitution that is created exactly to protect the welfare of such people, equality in the access of power and universal recognition of rights and liberties are principles that characterize democracy as a government and as a political theory.Bill Moyers believes in the power of â€Å"we†. He believes in the principles of equality and liberty. He believes in all principles that speak of democracy. However, there is something different about Moyer’s portrayal of democracy. His speeches, shows and works, all suggest not only a man who knows and believes in principles but also a man who is passionate in his advocacy of bringing these principles into actuality, not by inciting revolt or actual participation in a revolution but through refle ctive words that inspire and incite the dignity and humanity in man.Bill Moyers starts Discovering What Democracy Means (2007) by defending social scientists, artists and scholars, and arts and humanities as teachers of the mind. While the Congress is being skeptical about allocating funds to arts and humanities, doubting its actual and practical contribution to the society, Moyers’ answer is simple: â€Å"They are worth listening to†.How are they worth listening to? Moyers doesn’t present the Congress with a ledger of beneficial consequences, because surely he can show none. But he cites a series of quotes from such public thinkers, pointing to these quotes as something that would have taught the members of the Congress the questions shared by the people, and would have put their minds in a position to judge the status of the society in relation to the people’s capacity and reservoir of creativity. At one point he intimated that arts and humanities bring the good in people, even at least in their fantasies:â€Å"They would have heard the filmmaker David Puttnam tell how as a boy he sat through dozens of screenings of A Man for All Seasons, the story of Sir Thomas More’s fatal defiance of Henry VIII: â€Å"It allowed me the enormous conceit of walking out of the cinema thinking, ‘Yeah, I think I might have had my head cut off for the sake of a principle.’ I know absolutely I wouldn’t, and I probably never met anyone who would, but the cinema allowed me that conceit. It allowed me for one moment to feel that everything decent in me had come together.†Ã¢â‚¬  (Moyers, 2007)This quote may also be interpreted as putting premium on vicarious experience. After all, a person is not expected to experience everything that can be experienced in one lifetime. Arts and humanities provide a medium for allowing people to experience more than what their limitations (imposed by reality and self-impressions) allow them to experience. It allows people to feel a sense of empowerment, or a sense of pride that they can do much more or know much more than what they routinely experience and perceive every day.If viewed in light of the above quotation, this interpretation also says that the Congressmen would have had a wider world view, and therefore better understanding of humanity and its interactions if only they allowed themselves to be taught by arts and humanities.This is Moyer’s meaning of democracy. It is more than being concerned with the improvement of the lives of each individual; It nurtures individual freedom and ability. In other words, democracy should be more than a government structure; True democracy also uplifts humanity. In this sense, Moyer’s democracy can be equated with the principles of humanism.Moyers, taking from Cleanth Brooks of Yale, identified both the enemies and allies of democracy. The enemies of democracy are identified as the â€Å"’bastard mu ses’ propaganda which plead, sometimes unscrupulously, for a special cause or issue at the expense of the total truth; sentimentality, which works up emotional responses unwarranted by, and in excess of, the occasion; and pornography, which focuses upon one powerful human drive at the expense of the total human personality† (Moyers, 2007).To counter these, the allies of democracy must be cultivated. These include â€Å"the ‘true muses’ of moral imagination,† which not only arms us â€Å"to resist the little lies and fantasies of advertising, the official lies of power, and the ghoulish products of nightmarish minds, but also open us to the lived experience of others—to the affirmations of heightened consciousness—to empathy† (Moyers, 2007). Is Moyer speaking about the media?Moyers think that the media have left people to become mere receptacles of information, which unfortunately has been corrupted by pundits and biased, conceite d, politicized opinions, and newsfeeds pervade the society. All are fronts for specific political interests, creating principles that are anti-democracy.It is only through liberal education that a person can be liberated from circumstances that are beyond his/her control. Moyer believes that people have been institutionalized in a way that each person has become locked in a separate reality, parochial loyalties and fixed self-perceptions, and everybody becomes a stranger to everybody. Democracy will prosper only if such bonds that separate individuals from one another are destroyed in order to allow â€Å"a life of free and enriching communion† (Moyers, 2007).The present crisis does not involve the existence of problems, issues or lack of policies. The problem is the lack of conversations about the real meaning of democracy—that it is not merely a means of governance but a means of empowering and dignifying people so that they can truly attain freedom, both morally and politically. An entrusted democracy is not true democracy. Moyer thinks that it is time for the people to repossess democracy.Bill Moyers ends his speech by praising Woodrow Wilson for being advocate of democracy. This is quite a surprise for someone like Moyers who is passionate about espousing democracy in its â€Å"deeper† meaning. Woodrow Wilson, based on some of his actions, manifested an undemocratic leaning. It was he, for example, who brought to the US the Federal Reserve which controls or creates monetary policies that some would describe as undemocratic. It was he who brought troops into Mexico and who took the US into WWI.His idealism favored a top-down structure of society controlled by the elite. Lastly, Woodrow Wilson is also known for his support of the Ku Klux Klan, a domestic organization in the United States having national scope and is known for doing acts of violence to further â€Å"white supremacy†. What could be a better manifestation of anti-de mocratic sentiments than a person’s support for the freedom and equality that were the legacy of the forefathers of the United States?Moyer’s sentiments against the media, the government and the â€Å"enemies of democracy† as well as his discourse about the need to discuss the meaning of democracy, and take it from the hands of the elite are well and good but the problem is that he offers no solution in order to help the people and the society to move forward from its current undemocratic and lamentable state. Moyer’s words may have inspired many but the time when such inspiration will be turned into something more tangible is yet to come. Reference Moyer, B. (2007). Discovering What Democracy Means. Retrieved 01 May 2009 from http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2007/02/discovering_wha.html.