Abstract This paper analyzes the films of writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson. It explores common themes in his films, "Hard Eight," "Boogie Nights," "Magnolia" and "Punch-Drunk Love." It discusses Anderson's cinematic techniques bold camera work and superior scripts. The paper also includes biographical information on Anderson.
From the Paper "With only four feature films to his credit, Paul Thomas Anderson has established himself as one of Hollywood's most gifted contemporary authors. As writer and director and sometimes producer of his movies Anderson not only maintains artistic control he brings ..."
Tags: Films, Movies, Anderson, Magnolia, Sandler, Writer, Director, Valley, Cruise
Abstract This paper describes the differences between Sherwood Anderson, an American author, and Sir Francis Seymour Haden, a British artist. It compares their major works and discuses three main similarities between them.
From the Paper "Sherwood Anderson is a well-known archetype of an American torn between success and creativity. He walked out of his office as president of his own manufacturing company in Ohio, not only giving up a dream of becoming rich in American business, but also abandoning his responsibilities as a husband and a father. He gave up business for literature. Winesburg, Ohio and The Egg and Other Stories are good examples of how he incorporated his own dramatic life experiences into his writing. Sir Francis Seymour Haden was a successful doctor, and found that his amateur etching helped discipline his hand for surgery. Haden continued with his hobby until it helped him to become one of the best landscape etchers of all time. Realism is the attempt, in literature and art, to depict life as it actually exists. Sherwood Anderson and Sir Francis Seymour Haden use themes of solitude, self-reflection, and nature to portray realism. "
Abstract The paper notes that Professor Elijah Anderson is a renowned studier of human behavior and that one of his most important studies had been observations in a local bar and liquor store in Chicago's South Side. The paper further notes that for three years Anderson analyzed and interacted with the people who visited the store "Jelly's". This information has been compiled into "A Place on the Corner". The paper discusses how Anderson's work has gained popularity due to the multiple approaches to ethnography that he has adopted to study the people who visited "Jelly's". This paper critically outlines Anderson's contribution to the field of ethnography and how it helps one understand the local street people.
Outline:
Introduction
Synopsis
Review
Conclusion
From the Paper "In every community according to Anderson there is an understanding and acceptance with conditions. The individuals meet and commune without crossing the boundaries of each other's territory. The process of social exchange allows them to produce a social order. This is also reflected in urbanization and urban society where groups form extended family to associate their identity with. This is explained by the concept of social stratification. According to Bergel (1962) social stratification refers to "generally conceived structural feature for a given social system." Bergel is of the view that like the universe human social structure reflects its units. Individuals are the functional units that play the role of identity, functions, effectiveness and efficiency of the group".
This paper reviews Elijah Anderson's "Code of the Street: Decency, Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City", which describes inner city black culture.
1,725 words (approx. 6.9 pages), 0 sources, 2004, $ 55.95
Abstract This paper examines Elijah Anderson's "Code of the Street: Decency, Violence and the Moral Life of the Inner City", extensive interviews with people who live in an area he describes as a "hyperghetto" in "North Philadelphia". The author relates that Anderson points out that, only one generation ago, the neighborhood contained numerous manufacturing jobs; men who wanted to be decent parents could get a job that provided their family with a living wage. The paper concludes that Anderson's book, using full, unedited quotes from the people who live in North Philadelphia, managed to be analytical without being impersonal; he gives readers who have never been anywhere near such a neighborhood an understanding of both its strengths and its weaknesses.
From the Paper "The attitude of street families has at least some roots in the perception and reality of racism. Street families believe that there's one kind of justice for whites, and another for blacks, and so they will have to right any wrongs done to them on their own. Power comes from having a large group of people who will back you up in a dispute, no questions asked. The fewer people you can count on to call to your side, the weaker, and more vulnerable, you are. Having respect means not that you work hard or are trying to raise your family well, but that you are capable of vengeance and will not hesitate to seek it."
Abstract In this paper, the writer describes the meaning and symbolism found in Hans Christian Anderson's "The Philosopher's Stone". The author examines the allegorical meaning behind the garden motif and blindness in the story. The paper also considers the intellectual times in which Anderson wrote this work, including the problems facing the 19th century. Despite these problems, Anderson concludes with encouraging his audience to have faith in humanity.
From the Paper "The mid to late 19th century was a time of questioning and change. It was the period that saw the prominence of revolutionary thinkers like Freud, Marx, and Darwin and literary innovators like Dickens and Zola. Thinking people of the period questioned what had come before them, but more importantly questioned what life had become. Social commentary and revolutionary thinking took center stage in this period (Morris). Hans Christian Andersen's tale "The Philosopher's Stone" comments on what has become of life by seeking the answer to one of the most important questions for humanity: What happens after death? Andersen uses this question to guide his tale. As Andersen has the characters search for the Philosopher's Stone, he weaves social commentary into the tradition of fairy tales in this piece from 1859."
Tags: Hans, Christian, Anderson, Philosopher's, Stone, allegory
Reviews Virginia Anderson's "Creatures of Empire", which discuses the problems of the coexistence of the English and Indians in early colonial America.
1,360 words (approx. 5.4 pages), 0 sources, 2007, $ 45.95
Abstract This paper explains that Virginia Anderson's "Creatures of Empire", which explores the relations between English settlers and Indians in early colonial America, argues about the significant part English animals, especially cattle and pigs, played in advancing colonization. The author points out that Anderson believes that these animals, as tools of settlement, succeeded in complicating relations between natives and colonists because they forced adaptation and change on the native peoples previously content without them. The paper concludes that Anderson wrote that the friction between these two peoples progressively increased, aided in large part by disputes over domesticated animals, which led eventually to the outbreak of violence in the mid 1670s.
From the Paper "Informed by pretentious attitudes, settlers assumed that the obvious benefits of husbandry regarding livestock and farming, just like civility and Christianity, would work as a testament to themselves, convincing the Indians quite effortlessly of their superior nature. Wholly champions of Indian adoption of husbandry practices in favor of a Christian life, even when small disputes played out, the English solution typically involved an attempt at compromise with the Indians while continuing efforts to impress upon them husbandry."
Tags: husbandry christian dominion free-ranging, cultural identity
Abstract Marian Anderson and Paul Robeson were two of America's greatest singers. They both shared a penchant for music that continued with them through their entire lives, and both were two of the first black Americans "to win secure places in the galaxy of concert stars" by the mid-1950s. Although they shared a similar passion, their careers and lives were extremely different. When faced with political situations throughout her singing career, Marian chose to remain relatively silent. Robeson, on the other hand, voiced his opinions about race relations to the entire country and was extremely involved in the political situation of the times. This paper, however, does not delve into the lives of these two icons beyond their music. Instead, it concentrates on what role music played in Marian Anderson's and Paul Robeson's lives , what types of music they were attracted to and for what reasons.
From the Paper "Perhaps because Robeson had been singing for his own inner strength all his life that he was extremely singular in what he chose to sing. For example, in 1924 he gave solo concerts, singing the songs of H.T. Burleigh and by doing so "confirming that he had a potential concert career." Robeson did not like the classical European concert style of Burleigh's renditions, though. He preferred "the pure original spirituals arranged by Rosamond Johnson" and "he kept on working on them privately." From 1925 onwards he decided to sing solely spirituals and folk songs of other countries."
Abstract This paper examines how Marian Anderson was a role model to all African-Americans in the 1930s and how through her voice and her songs she brought people and music closer together despite the racial gap. It looks at how she opened the doors for other African-American singers, workers and dreamers and how through her courage and understanding of the world around her, Marian Anderson conquered racism in the United States of America.
From the Paper "Finally, Marian was noticed and her extremely lovely voice was discovered. She was invited to go to England to study German lieder with Raimun von Zur Muhlen. She met artists, musicians and actors there. She attended concerts of famous artists such as Arthur Rubinstein and Lily Pons, learning and growing in her music with each experience without worrying about racism (Patterson 60). Anderson's first European concert was in Europe at Wigmore Hall. After her success she returned to the US in 1930 to give a few concerts, but her career was standing still. Here however, she was discovered by a representative of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, who helped black people to advance their education. "
Abstract This paper examines and reviews the imagery in Sherwood Anderson's short story "Hands," which offers a glimpse of small town life in America's Midwest. The writer of this also paper discusses and details the plot of the novel and the main character Wing Biddlebaum, who's described by Anderson as a poor little man, beaten, pounded and frightened by the world.
From the Paper "One can tell from the imagery beginning with the decaying porch, that there was not much use fixing the place up. It was home, for whatever it looked like, to this nervous little bald man. Winesburg surely had, as most small Midwestern towns did, a sort of pecking order. There were the affluent, with fertile fields, or grain and feed stores, bankers and other businessmen who foreclosed loans and sold over-priced goods to their regular customers, while winning them over with the smiles."
Abstract This paper takes a look at "Code of the Street" by Elijah Anderson and discusses Anderson's analysis of the two types of families that exist in the streets; the decent type of family and the street family. The paper reviews the circumstances leading up to and surrounding the reasons for a family becoming either a decent family or a street family and looks at how eachy type of family copes with the situation it is in.
From the Paper "Street families, and the attitudes they are known for, are formed and developed as a result of one basic reality that American society, and even other societies, have failed to find solution to: poverty. The inescapable reality of not having the money to support one's self and his/her family is, as Anderson explicated, a reality that must be cope with by being "tough." That is, one's morale is preserved by being branded as "tough" rather than poor; in most street families, this is a better and more powerful description of themselves that they could live by. Indeed, as the author's study on America's streets proved, being tough meant being feared by other people, and being feared comes the power of being able to assert one's control over another--in the case of the street families, they "rule" the streets because they are capable of bringing violence in the streets, the only reason that makes decent families fear street families."
Tags: poverty, violence, conflict, society, culture, fear
Abstract This paper examines the theories of Robyn Eckersley. It considers how two of the theories he discusses, Environmental Economics and Free Market Environmentalism, are viewed by Robert Alexander and Terry Anderson as keys to not only explaining environmental depredation but as intellectual constructs which offer some hopeful alternatives and tentative solutions for the future.
From the Paper "Environmental Planning: The theories of Robyn Eckersley and how the ideas of Alexander and Anderson can save the environment (maybe) The following paper will examine the theories of Robyn Eckersley - as presented in our course materials - by considering how two of the theories he discusses, Environmental Economics and Free Market Environmentalism, are viewed by Robert Alexander and Terry Anderson as keys to not only explaining environmental depredation but as intellectual constructs which offer some hopeful alternatives and tentative solutions for the future. Over the next several pages, we will look carefully at the work of Alexander and Anderson as well as a New York Times article which adumbrates the good and the bad of an environmental policy rooted in strong private property rights, financial incentives, and rational self-interest (all things Anderson and Alexander appear to believe in)."
This paper reviews Elijah Anderson's "Code of the Street," which details the film industry's common practice of glorifying gangs and low income minority communities as well as the news and media's tendency to shine a totally different light on this issue.
Abstract This paper explores Elijah Anderson's book "Code of the Street" which details the manner in which popular culture glamorizes gangster life while the news media depicts urban slums as being overrun with violent criminals. In his book Anderson explains that there is in fact an intricate culture to life in poor minority communities. The author contends that this "code," or way of life, encompasses ideas regarding the manner in which families interact among themselves. This "code" is the result of the structural circumstances and cultural adaptations made by the people who live in these violent communities. In the context of Anderson's book, these structural circumstances are the situations individuals become involved in due to their place in society. This paper also discusses the film "Boyz N the Hood" which exemplifies and provides support for Anderson's theories. The film, designed to create awareness about life in violent communities, offers several significant scenes which are analyzed in this paper.
Table of Contents:
Introduction
Significant Events in "Boyz N the Hood"
The Film's Events as They Apply to Anderson's Book
Conclusion
From the Paper "The "code" is the result of the structural circumstances and cultural adaptations made by the people who live in these violent communities. In the context of Anderson's book, structural circumstances are the situations individuals become involved in due to their place in society. An example of a structural circumstance would be the life of a decent single mother. Without the structure of a nuclear family, who become role models in the community the single mother "must work even harder to neutralize the draw of the street, and she does so mainly be being strict and by instilling decent values in her children. Cultural adaptations are the way they alter their behavior in order to survive in particular situations or environments. For example, decent families will often have to "code-switch" which means they may have to behave in a violent or vulgar street manner instead of the decent, respectful manner in which they have been taught in order to survive a situation."
Tags: film, minority, culture, society, violence, media
Abstract This paper examines Elijah Anderson's "The Code of the Streets" which introduces the idea that violence, aggression, stealing and other socially deviant behaviors are not perceived as infractions of rules, but rather conforming to a different standard, a different set of rules. Anderson does an adequate job of setting forth his ideas, along with providing sufficient evidence to support them. It criticizes Anderson's perspective of street families and decent families when he describes inner city life and his portrayal of abusive mothers who beat their children and let them run riot.
From the Paper "The contrasts between street families, and decent families are not always easily observed. As Anderson points out, most street families appear on the surface to be decent families. (Anderson, p. 157) The appearance of having "calm, respectful children" is often what the mother wants most, more than happy children. (Anderson, p. 157) Her desire for such a family is often so strong that she is "quick to beat her children"if they defy her law.? (Anderson, p. 157) Anderson concludes that this abusive behavior is often perceived as acceptable behavior within the inner city the disapproval from the wider society as a whole. (Anderson, p. 157)"
Abstract This paper discusses and analyzes the occurrence of deviant behavior in the context of life on the street. The paper contends that street life is predominated by people who live in poor inner-city neighborhoods. The paper reviews Elijah Anderson's book, "Code of the Street," that studies this very phenomenon. Applying the basic concepts associated in the study of the sociology of deviant behavior, the paper argues that Anderson's analysis of street life in "Code of the Street" puts into context the labeling theory of deviant behavior, wherein people's attitudes and behavior are associated with the labels that other people give them as deviants in society. The paper discusses this issue extensively, providing references to both Schaefer and Anderson's discussions on deviant behavior.
From the Paper "Despite the establishment of these social norms and rules, there are still individuals who do not conform, or "deviate," from the established norms and rules in the society. Schaefer (1998) identifies deviance as a "behavior that violates the standards of conduct and or expectations of a group or society" (160). Directly linked with the study of deviant behavior is the concept of social control, which regulates human behavior within society. Thus, deviance may include some form of social control in order to inculcate in society that deviant behavior are undesirable for the society. Social control may be formal or informal, wherein the former imposes a legal procedure, such as imprisonment, or simply, by making the individual an "outsider," isolated from his/her society and not welcomed to interact with other people."
