Abstract This paper is an analysis of Himes' novel called "Yesterday Will Make You Cry." A message becomes clear in this book through the author's use of language and parallels that true love for another person transcends sexuality. The love between Jimmy and Rico developed in a most unusual and violent setting, "in that place of scarred, distorted souls, of abnormality".
Abstract This paper interprets the movie "Boys Don't Cry" using the personality theory of Erik Erikson. The author presents a brief synopsis of the movie and an analysis of its main character, Teena Brandon. The paper concludes that, based on Erikson's conceptual framework of personality and psychosocial development, Teena has an issue of identity diffusion.
Abstract This paper shows how Pynchon's use of music is not limited to just one of his novels but makes a profound impact on all his works, most noticeably "Gravity's Rainbow" and the book selected for this paper, "The Crying of Lot 49". It is Pynchon's love for sounds that made him comment on "modern and unreal" classical and popular music into his books including the most accessible of his works, ?The Crying of Lot 49?.
From the Paper "The way music is presented in this novel can be understood from the following lines taken from Gravity's Rainbow, "Imagine this very elaborate scientific lie: that sound cannot travel through outer space. Well, but suppose it can. Suppose They don't want us to know there is a medium there, what used to be called an "aether," which can carry sound to every part of the Earth. The Soniferous Aether." - Gravity's Rainbow, p. 695. Pynchon urges us to ask ourselves what if music similarly is not really what it appears to be on the surface? What if the bands and their popular music are just manifestations of something more solid but obscure? What if music as we know is only as fragile in substance as the reality that we encounter each day? Complex as they may sound, these are the questions that Pynchon poses when he discusses music in his novel, ?The Crying of Lot 49?."
Critical analysis of Thomas Pynchon's, "Crying of Lot 49". The paper attempts to exploit the problems associated with Pynchon's world of isolated individuals and explains the oneness associated with people who are similar in their isolation.
Abstract This essay explores Pynchon's novel, "The Crying of Lot 49". It also looks at a critical essay written by Molly Hite and discusses the ways in which Oedipa becomes both isolated and at one with society. As more people join the "society of isolates", they become assimilated as one, rather than separate in their isolation. This essay covers some of the questions that arise when reading Pynchon's famous novel and it delves into the subject of love in "The Crying of Lot 49".
From the Paper "In her essay ?Purity as Parody in _The Crying of Lot 49_,? Molly Hite repeatedly argues that as Oedipa attempts to define her universe in terms of either absolute coherence, the ?Word,? ?one,? or ?Meaning,? or absolute incoherence, the ?Void,? ?zero,? or non-meaning, she misses a possible assimilation of these two ideas and thus becomes a failed heroine. Between these two apparently irreconcilable interpretative definitions that Oedipa gives to her universe, Hit posits that the novel suggests a third reality that the protagonist rejects during her alienated despair: ?The idea of a community of isolates is a paradox."
Abstract This paper examines the similarities in the films"Boys Don't Cry" and "TransAmerica". The paper explains that both films feature working class people, and the challenges of trailer park life--including the sexual stresses placed on vulnerable young people living in an environment where the walls, if they even exist, are thin. The paper also points out that both films are also both road movies, though this is more obvious with "TransAmerica" than with "Boys Don't Cry." Finally, the paper points out, what is most obvious about both films, that they are both films about transsexuals.
Abstract This paper discusses how the books "Man's Search For Meaning" by Viktor Frankl and "Warriors Don't Cry" by Melba Pattillo Beals are comparable on many levels. It looks at how both deal with oppression of a group of people because of religious and/or ethnic differences. It examines how Frankl's novel is a recollection of his experiences in the Nazi Death Camps during World War II, and how he found a way to survive not only physically, but mentally as well. It also looks at how "Warriors Don't Cry" is about Beals' experience as one of nine black children to be integrated into Central High School in 1957 and the persecution that she and her fellow classmates faced.
From the Paper "When the school year ended for Melba, as well as when the prisoners were liberated from the camps, happiness was not all of the sudden restored, but it was an emotion that had to be relearned in both situations. On page 310 in Warriors Don't Cry, Beals states, "It would take years of sorting out my Central High experience before the pieces of my life puzzle would come together and I could make sense of what happened to me". The trauma that Melba and her fellow black peers had experienced robbed them of all emotion that could be connected to the situation. In order to stop the pain, they blocked out feeling all together. "
Tags: concentration, camps, World, War, Two, African-American, black
Abstract An overview of Mowat's novel, with emphasis on the impact of nature on human beings and vice versa, and the interaction of man and other predators in the wild and human self-discovery.
From the Paper "Yet groundbreaking work in this field, particularly in the study of other species, can teach us not only about the habits and idiosyncrasies of the species in question, but also a great deal about our own misconceptions and where they come from. Author Farley Mowat, in Never Cry Wolf, offers as much a provocative understanding of wolves as of human nature."
Abstract An analysis of the novel "Cry, The Beloved Country" by Alan Paton. The author focuses on the theme of racial injustice and inequality as the main cause of black African crime in the novel. Included are several arguments by critics to strengthen the author's argument.
From the Paper "In Alan Paton's novel Cry, the Beloved Country, the characters depict a harsh and desperate world in which traditional ways have been abolished. Through the characters and their poor condition Paton demonstrates how the disintegration of the native black society of South Africa had led them to crime. "
Abstract An analysis of the key passage in Allan Paton's "Cry, The Beloved Country". An examination of the main character's experiences and perceptions upon arriving in the city for the first time.
From the Paper "In chapter four of Alan Paton's Cry, The Beloved Country the protagonist, Stephen Kumalo, experiences the bustling corrupt city of Johannesburg for the first time.Kumalo is a na"ve priest from an isolated African tribe in segregated South Africa who enters Johannesburg, the center of the moral and racial confusion of South Africa. Kumalo fears this place because he is uneducated in the ways of the world outside Ndotsheni. The passage describes Kumalo's understanding of the larger picture of South Africa; he begins to change from a na"ve child into a wise adult. At first Kumalo was in awe of the city's neon lights, then he was confused by the people and their journey to the ?underworld.? In the end of the passage, Paton establishes Kumalo as a child who clings to his faith."
Tags: essay, key, passage, city, shock, arrive, rural, urban
Abstract This paper looks at the book "Warriors Don't Cry" which is the story of a young African American child who was one of the first who forced racial integration into the Little Rock school system. The writer analyzes how the book, which is written through the eyes of a child, helps people realize the stupidity of their bigotry.
From the paper:
"?We are not these bodies, we are spirits, God's ideas,? Grandma India explained to Melba Pattillo Beals one afternoon as they tended Grandma's garden of four-o?clocks. "You don"t want to be white, what you really want is to be free, and freedom is a state of mind? (6). It was perhaps those words of wisdom spoken to a child only six years of age that helped create the courage that would one day be needed by Melba to fulfill her destiny. Melba Pattillo would, ten years later, be among the first Black children to attend and help integrate Little Rock's previously all-White Central High School."
Abstract This paper analyzes the film "Boys Don't Cry" created in 1999, which explores how we identify gender and differentiate between the masculine and the feminine. The paper describes the story of the female Teena Brandon who masquerades herself as the male Brandon Teena. It illustrates visually that identity as male and female actually involves only a relative few visual and aural cues. The author writes that society does not tolerate that much freedom and that those who step too far outside the gender boundaries society has set are destroyed. The paper demonstrates how gender is not the only issue being tested in this film, for ideas about small towns, tolerance, and the threat of the outsider are also examined.
From the Paper "The film Boys Don't Cry (1999, Kimberly Peirce) is based on a true story and raises numerous real-world issues in its story of a murder case in middle America in which the victim was a girl who successfully passed herself off as a boy. The film delves into gender issues, questions of identity, and the ethics of interpersonal relationships. First, the viewer asks why so many people were fooled for such a long time by this masquerade."
Abstract This essay discusses the principle character, Oedipa of Thomas Pynchon's monograph, "The Crying Lot of 49". The author examines how to seek truth and to draw a line between what is real and what is pseudo demands not only rationality but also the power to keep one's senses intact. The writer shows how searching for the answers to the perplexing and intellectually challenging questions result in our increased knowledge of the world and its practices but also what augments is our disbelief regarding the meaning and the values that we hold dear.
From the Paper "Oedipa Mass is undoubtedly the female heroine of the novel, The Crying Lot of 49 by Thomas Pynchon. The entire plot of the masterpiece by Pynchon revolves around the self-discoveries of the protagonist (Pynchon). When his ex-lover Pierce leaves an obscene amount of wealth with Oedipa as the sole executor of his will, the female principle character embarks on a journey where she comes across the two stark opposites; the fantasy world and the real world (Pynchon). Trying desperately to distinguish between the two, Oedipa sets on an odyssey, making futile attempts to solve a worldwide conspiracy in the South of California (Pynchon). In order to piece together the mystery and the truth behind her boyfriend's will she waste her valuable mechanical energy (Pynchon)."
Abstract May 17, 1994, marks the fortieth anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling, which was argued and won by Thurgood Marshall, whose passion and presence emboldened the Little Rock struggle. The paper examines Melba Patillo Beals commemoration of the milestone decision in her first-person account of the violent confrontation that helped shape the civil rights movement. In "Warriors Don't Cry" by Melba Patillo Beals, Beals' depiction of racism in Little Rock, Arkansas, reveals that she was not only a student during the Civil Rights Movement but also had to be a warrior who fought against segregation in the South. By examining Beals' memoirs, the paper shows how her real life experiences, particularly her experiences with desegregation, closely approximate the idea of a warrior.
From the Paper "In the beginning, the element of the warrior in Beals is directly related to the desegregation of her high school in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the book, there were two things that saved Beal when she walked in Little Rock High. One was the landmark 1954 Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education, which "brought the promise of integration to Little Rock, Arkansas"(55). Yet, the ruling only paved the way for integration, the real battle was hard-won for the nine black teenagers chosen to be the front line in the desegregation of Central High School in 1957. These teenagers had to fight a battle that was both civil and governmental, fighting against a rampaging mob and the heavily armed Arkansas National Guard, dispatched by Governor Orval Faubus to subvert federal law and bar them from entering the school. The second thing that saved her was when President Dwight D. Eisenhower responded, "by sending in soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division, the elite "Screaming Eagles,"(177) which transformed Melba Patillo Beals and her eight friends into reluctant warriors on the battlefield of civil rights."
Tags: Arkansas, National, Guard, racism, Central, High
Abstract "The Crying of Lot 49" is a convoluted, complex novel that delves deeply into the fractured American national consciousness that began to emerge after the Vietnam War. The paper examines how Thomas Pynchon portrays this disintegration of the relative national unity and moral clarity of the post WWII days into an environment of ambivalence, drugs and madness in his novel.
From the Paper "The Crying of Lot 49 is thought by many to be Thomas Pynchon's greatest work. Under 200 pages long, it packs an incredible amount of complexity into a short space, forcing the reader to follow along closely in order to make any sense out of the plot. There are only a couple main characters, although the rest of the text is filled with brief cameos and one-dimensional figures that pop into the story line to serve a specific purpose and then disappear, leaving the reader with no real sense of character development. The book's convoluted plotline and vast, varied and overarching conspiracy theories create a sense of the unreal that continually builds, at first threatening to overrun the story and bog it down in confusion and chaos, but finally attaining enough momentum to push the story (and the reader) through to the end."
Abstract This five-page undergraduate paper applies Lyotard's "The Postmodern Condition" to the themes of "The Crying of Lot 49". Lyotard's discussion of language games and nodal points, addressee, sender, and referent are seen in Oedipa.
