Joan Crawford's life appeared to mirror the characters that she portrayed on film in several ways. By analyzing the 1945 film Mildred Pierce, in which Crawford plays the titular character, one can see how Mildred's character is designed to reflect Am Continue Reading...
American Lit Definition of Modernism and Three Examples Indeed, creating a true and solid definition of modernism is exceptionally difficult, and even most of the more scholarly critical accounts of the so-called modernist movement tend to divide t Continue Reading...
Old Western Frontier -- the Pervasiveness of the Western Frontier Hero in the American Imagination The heroic American national character and the search for an ungoverned American frontier are fused in the America national imagination. America envi Continue Reading...
" By commerce, one should read the relationship between master and slave in general. Here, Jefferson speaks as a true man of the Enlightenment who cannot accept the degrading submission of a human being. On the other hand, some of his arguments agai Continue Reading...
Waves of immigrants -- the Irish fleeing famine, the Italians, the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Chinese -- came to America, in the hopes of beginning their own businesses, starting their own farms and making life better for their children. Ameri Continue Reading...
Hero One of the most pervasive archetypes in literature is the hero. The Greeks presented a complex and very human type of hero, often referred to as the tragic hero. Readers can relate especially to tragic heroes because tragic heroes have flaws. T Continue Reading...
American Psycho In his seminal work American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis uses the character of the yuppie serial killer Patrick Bateman in order to criticize American consumer culture while simultaneously challenging the reader to confront his or her Continue Reading...
American Civil War/Sioux Indians Cowboys and Indians in Hollywood: The Treatment of Quotidian Life of the Sioux People in Dances With Wolves The old Hollywood Westerns that depicted the heroic cowboy and the evil Indian have past; they no longer Continue Reading...
12. Sweeney is Derek's teacher all across the movie and even a substitute for the father Derek lost. The transformation suffered by Derek from a narrow-minded skinhead to a thinker and a freedom fighter is impressive. Part of Derek's new concept of Continue Reading...
Heroes & Anti-Heroes Chester Himes and Americo Paredes tell stories that compel readers to be concerned about structural racism in America. Though the settings are circa 1900s and 1940s, the stranglehold that bigotry has on America -- particular Continue Reading...
However, because of Gilgamesh's thought that he may be invincible, he is actually putting his friend's life at risk by going on his adventure. In his attempt to prove that he is brave and that he would rather die for a cause, he actually indirectly Continue Reading...
Although his wife was really upset, and very mean to him, his patience with her and about the severity of the situation, makes him a model person. Not many people actually have this attribute, and although many would wish to attain it, very few do. Continue Reading...
Ginsberg in fact spent some time in a psychiatric ward and his poem Howel makes the implication that his and his contemporaries madness is caused by the madness of society which, due to its infatuation with technology, has become a demon far worse t Continue Reading...
American Musical Genres: Rhythm and Blues Rhythm and Blues, or R&B, is an American musical genre largely attributed to the African-American community. Originating in the 1940s, the term was first used by record companies to describe recordings " Continue Reading...
Desperate to find the gold Columbus had assumed was hidden on the island to pay back his investors, he ordered all Indians to produce a certain amount of gold every three months in return for a copper token they were forced to hang from their necks. Continue Reading...
As Nathan described Swede, "Of the fair complexioned Jewish students in our preponderantly Jewish public high school, none possessed anything remotely like the step-jawed insentient Viking mask of this blue-eyed blond born into our tribe as Seymour Continue Reading...
This presence has changed much of the personal behavior of individual spectators. A most relevant example in this case is given by the Cosby Show. In the series, Bill Cosby played a father of five and his real life expertise and education in child p Continue Reading...
Henry David Thoreau also senses this loss of distinction. His book, Walden, published in 1854 at the height of American Romanticism, celebrates his return to Nature -- a sanctum of non-artificiality -- where Romantic writers sought knowledge and sp Continue Reading...
American culture and the consumption (patterns) of American youth in television, film, and other entertainment venues Mommy I want that!" When discussing how American culture 'corrupts' children, the first words to come to mind are usually four lett Continue Reading...
In a society that no longer views education as one of its most important virtues, and no longer sees the beauty and power in knowledge, teachers break through those barriers and offer what ever it is that they can to a world of students that seem to Continue Reading...
The fact that he commits suicide supports the belief that he is unable to live with his memories in boot camp, given that he was permanently traumatized. The film's general character changes significantly after the sergeant and Pyle die and one can Continue Reading...
The traditional view of these 15th century explorers is that they were brave sailors who braved the risks and difficulties of oceanic travel and who "discovered" new lands in distant places. In truth, they were horribly brutal, homicidal tyrants who Continue Reading...
Heroes of American Labor In the beginning years of the last century, working conditions were grave, especially for female workers. This is was, in part, because the world still wasn't behind women wanting to work outside of the home. Male unions and Continue Reading...
American Studies Civil Disobedience in American Historical Life and Literature There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love," writes Martin Luther King Junior in his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" from his civil rights era protes Continue Reading...
Therefore, the "day the music died" was the day music and politics became fused. The Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, the Civil Rights movement, and other historical events also evoke imagery associated with death. "The day the music died" al Continue Reading...
224). The truth about Columbus, Vizenor asserts, is that he was "an untrue concoction, the ruse of his own representation. He is the overstated adventurer, to be sure," and moreover Columbus is the "master of neocolonial celebrations in a constitut Continue Reading...
Italian-Americans -- 1930s The American experience for Italian immigrants (with particular emphasis on the 1930s) is the salient topic for this paper. The materials presented from scholarly sources in this paper show the positive and negative impact Continue Reading...
hero? And what has one got to do with the movies? The answer to that question - which is really the question of how the mass media influence popular perceptions of the heroic and the Hero - is a complex one as are any significant questions that exam Continue Reading...
Military and Athletic Heroes According to author Joseph Campbell, "A hero is someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself." (Campbell 123). Soldiers are the most obvious example of heroes; they put their lives one the line, Continue Reading...
Huckleberry Finn and What Makes an American What Makes Twain's Huckleberry Finn American? "Those canonic ideals -- self-government, equal opportunity, freedom of speech and association, a belief in progress, were first proclaimed during the era of Continue Reading...
It had been built on land which Tubman had actually purchased and which adjoined her own property in Auburn. During her time in the home she told many stories to whoever would listen regarding her adventures and all that she had done in her life. W Continue Reading...
Harriet Tubman: the Making of a Hero There are people who are way before the times that they are born into and must live in. A shining example of this is the woman Harriet Tubman, who led the Underground Railroad in the mid-1800's, freeing over 70 Continue Reading...
American Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt sculpted Mount Rushmore. Being an American President is surely one of the most honorable duties that one can take on, considering the country's role in int Continue Reading...
history seems only like a carefully curated set of facts, figures, and events that when taken together promote a specific ideology or worldview. Thus, Americans focus almost exclusively on people, places, and events that uphold the idea of American Continue Reading...
As is often the case, these good times could not last forever. Just like our modern day governmental debt being financed by foreign investment, Andrew Jackson and the nation faced reality when in 1837 foreign investors came to banks to collect. The Continue Reading...
The positive value that most people place on a character's ability to face their demons is traditionally what defines a "hero." What defines a "tragic hero" is when facing those demons is too much for the protagonist to handle, which is the case in Continue Reading...
Much of the country to this day suffers, and many look back and consider the country at best a "wasteland" destroyed and dismantled for unrecognizable causes (Kirkwood-Tucker & Benton, 2002). World response was so dramatic to the war in Vietnam Continue Reading...
The enormous number of questions did not only succeed in bringing people to physical exhaustion, but they also confused people to the level where they could no longer think logically and risked being deported, even though they were not attempting to Continue Reading...
American Dream understood 1960's/1970's 16[1961], Kennedy delivered a landmark speech at the University of Washington campus in Seattle: "We must face the fact that the United States is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, that we are only 6% of the Continue Reading...
Fitzgerald contrast Americans and Europeans. The characters and the development of events in Tender is the Night are strongly influenced by the historic period the author along with the whole world were going through. Fitzgerald's own experience of Continue Reading...
