Abstract
The movie Simon Birch (Johnson, 1998) features an unusual protagonist, a young boy who is also a dwarf and yet is also the smartest person in his town. He is also convinced that God has a particular mission in mind for him in life, though he does not yet know what that mission might be. Simon is paired with and also contrasted with his friend Joe, who has no idea who is father is because his mother will not tell him. The two boys come together in being different from others, for Joe is called a bastard by some, and Simon is a dwarf.

From the Paper
Demographic Information The movie Simon Birch (Johnson, 1998) features an unusual protagonist, a young boy who is also a dwarf and yet is also the smartest person in his town. He is also convinced that God has a particular mission in mind for him in life, though he does not yet know what that mission might be. Simon is paired with and also contrasted with his friend Joe, who has no idea who is father is because his mother will not tell him. The two boys come together in being different from others, for Joe is called a bastard by some, and Simon is a dwarf. Joe's mother has a close relationship with her son, though she refuses to tell him about his father, while Simon's

Tags:theories, developemnt, film

Abstract
This essay provides a discussion of the relationship between two lonely men, the dwarf Fin and the coffee shop owner Joe from the film "The Station Agent". The paper explains how through his unique communication style, Joe eventually provides the defensive Fin with hope for a personal and social life.

From the Paper
"In The Station Agent Finbar Fin McBride is a lonely dwarf who inherits an abandoned trains station when its owner his only friend dies. He moves to the station in Newfoundland New Jersey where he expects to live a life of ..."

Tags:relational culture, masculine pattern, defense mechanisms, gregarious, reclusive, loneliness

Abstract
This paper relates that Andrew Isenberg in "The Destruction of the Bison" looks at the 10,000 years story of the interrelationship between people and the bison. Next, the author highlights Isenberg's telling of how the paleoindians, the American nomadic Indians, such as the Comanche, and the euroamericans used the bison for food, shelter, cloths, small tools, trade and sport. The paper underscores that Isenberg believes that both these humans and climatic events led to the near decimation of the American bison; however, the herd has been rebuilt and remains the symbol of the American West.

From the Paper
"Bison fed on grasses in the Great Plains; grasses were at their peak in the summer time when they grew the most. The taller the grass the more carbohydrates they possessed, so that is when bison gathered in large groups to eat the grasses and mate. Autumn was also the most dry period of the year, and fire storms, such as the one in the 1760's, were common across the rolling great plains, which annihilated large numbers of bison that got caught in the wake of the flames.
"Drought was also another factor in the decimation of the bison, there would be decades of normal weather, but then there would be a decade of drought, during droughts grass remained innutritious and short, which was not the ideal circumstances for bison."

Tags:paleoindians droughts plains, long range rifle, railroad

Abstract
The paper relates that stars are born, live their stellar lives and then die. The paper then discusses how "protostars" can evolve into high-mass stars, intermediate mass stars and low-mass stars and when they finally stop burning, they die and form white, black, brown or red dwarfs. The paper concludes that while we know much about stars, we still do not know enough.

From the Paper
"Stars twinkle and shine pretty in the night sky but they are actually complicated heavenly bodies. They are like us in that they are born, live their stellar lives, and then die. The early phases of a star's life begins when an "early phase of gravitational collapse," (Dasch) forms a "stellar embryo" (Dasch). Gas falls into the embryo, heating it up and when the embryo becomes warm enough, it begins resisting gravity. At this point, the embryo is called a "protostar" (Dasch). Grace Wolf-Chase maintains that this gas is "vast agglomerations of gas and dust" (Chase). Some of matter around the protostar begins to accumulate in a disk shape, rotating around it. Forces of gravity cause the disk to pick up speed and move toward the center. However, the gas and dust must slow down in order to fall onto the protostar."

Tags:protostar, giant, explosion, hydrogen

Abstract
As a genre of children's literature, fairy tales are filled with magic, coincidence and good luck for the good characters and bad luck for the bad characters. These delightfully entertaining tales are also filled with gender stereotypes. This paper examines female stereotypes within three fairy tales in particular: "Cinderella"; "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and "Sleeping Beauty". The paper examines their representations of female passivity, their emphasis on outer beauty as the quality that saves the heroine and their portrayals of competition among women for male attention (e.g., to marry the handsome prince), based on external beauty.

From the Paper
"Next Cinderella wishes, like her stepsisters, to attend the festival at which a handsome prince will be looking for a bride. But her request is refused by her stepmother because, "You have no clothes and shoes" (Grimm). The stepmother acts as if she is trying to protect Cinderella from ridicule, but it is clear instead that she wants as little competition as possible for her own daughters. Cinderella is ordered to help her stepsisters get ready, the first instance of feminine rivalry among Cinderella, the stepmother, and the stepmother's blood daughters."

Tags:Grimm, heroine, fairy, godmother, Anne, Sexton

Abstract
The paper relates that Pierre Bonnard's 1894 "La Revue Blanche" (The White Review) was a poster designed to promote a Parisian periodical that published work by cutting-edge writers of the late 19th century. The paper describes the two figures of a woman and a dwarf in the drawing and their significance. The paper asserts that Bonnard's work is still powerful today due to his stylistic composition and the unique and haunting nature of his figures.

From the Paper
"Bonnard's primary aesthetic influences were Japanese woodblock prints which accounts for the flat textures and perspective of La Revue Blanche (The White Review). The print shows the beautiful, detailed face of a beautiful female Parisian aristocrat with pale eyes and a shapely nose that casts an alluring, slightly off-center and mysterious gaze at a point just slightly off-center from the viewer's position in relation to the print. Her slender form and thick black ruffled coat are flat and black and evidently from the ink of a woodprint. They stand in stark and striking contrast to her detailed face. Her towering hat is a similar contrast in darkness and light, starkness and detail. The hat is only a vague shape but the small white flowers are extremely well-crafted and detailed."

Tags:Nabis, woman, dwarf, newsstand

Abstract
In C.J. Koch's, "The Year of Living Dangerously", Billy Kwan is an achondroplastic dwarf who seems to be at war with himself and ill-fitted for membership in any one group or ideology. This paper explores Billy's tormented existence and argues that his crisis of identity and his crisis of political philosophy are deeply entwined.

From the Paper
"To start with, it must be noted that Billy Kwan resembles, at least in his physiognomy, the Indonesian locals who view all of the pale-faced foreigners in Jakarta with such disdain (Koch, 22). Beyond that, Billy seems to be uncomfortably straddling two worlds - his father was Chinese, his mother Australian - and this leads to a crisis of sorts at the center of his being. As Wally notes at one point when discussing his diminutive sometimes drinking partner, "He's not sure whether he is (Chinese) or not" (Koch, 4). This is a remarkably telling passage inasmuch as 1965 - the year wherein the story is held - is right around the time when the People's Revolution is inflaming China and turning that nation's ancient society upside down; not to be passed over lightly, it is also a time wherein Mao has turned the structure of the state towards Marxism. "

Tags:identity, crisis, kwan, achondroplastic, dwarf

Abstract
The writer of this paper details why the landscape in this novel is a central character and is described in spiritual terms rather than physical ones. There is an emotional tone of foreboding and the landscape is always described in terms that dwarf the actual characters in the book. The paper shows how the author opts for the factual when describing the landscape, and delves into the mythic symbolism that can be found in certain descriptive passages.

From the Paper
"These descriptions are in keeping with the nature of a frontier as the area where things come together with their conflicting forces. The force of the colonists is to tame the frontier. The force of the indigenous natives is to keep it as it is. The landscape of the frontier itself becomes symbolic of both groups of characters in opposition to each other. In this way it actually becomes a personification of each."

Tags:literature

Abstract
The Tonkin Gulf Crisis 1964 ranks with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as events that David Kaiser of the U.S. Naval War College refers to as "controversies in American political history that dwarf all others". The paper shows that today, Tonkin Gulf researchers are still examining the evidence to determine whether or not President Johnson's administration intentionally instigated the first attack on Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin. It is still not entirely clear whether or not Hanoi actually launched a second attack on Maddox, either. The paper shows that researchers are investigating the facts to determine whether or not Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara deliberately lied to the U.S. Congress to gain support for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which sealed Johnson's re-election and led the United States into the Vietnam War.

From the Paper
"According to McNamara at the time of the incident, the Maddox crew did not have knowledge of the 34-Alpha raids. McNamara has since acknowledged that this claim was false, but denies knowing this at the time. The crew knew of the 34-Alpha operations and were worried that the 34-Alpha operations were putting their ship in danger. Many say that this incident made the crew nervous, therefore making them unreliable sources regarding the second attack in the Tonkin Gulf.
When the Senate approved Tonkin Gulf Resolution, Senators Morse and Ernest Gruening opposed the resolution. However, Congress voted 4160 in support. Morse stated, "I believe that within the next century, future generations will look with dismay and great disappointment upon a Congress which is now about to make such a historic mistake (Ford, 1997).""

Tags:Operation, Plan, 34A, CIA, Ticonderoga, NSA, Ho, Chi, Minh

Abstract
Race plays an important part in shaping the lives of the main characters and their behavior throughout Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings: he Fellowship of the Ring". The paper shows how the hobbits must overcome their dislike of change and adventure to embark on the quest to destroy the ring, and the quest ultimately destroys their childlike hobbit innocence. Aragorn, of the race of men, must struggle with mankind's complicity in the evil of the ring, while the animosity between dwarf and elf is played out in the actions of Gimli and Legolas.

From the Paper
"The movie's main character, Frodo Baggins (Elijah Wood) is one of the Hobbits. He is joined by his Hobbit friends Sam (Sean Astin), and Perry (Dominic Monaghan) on his adventure to return the ring to the fires of Mount Doom. Hobbits are essentially a race that is about half the height of men, with wide, hairy feet. They are by nature timid and childlike, and Frodo, Perry, and Sam live in the shelter of an idyllic shire before adventure sweeps them into their epic tale. Notes Bilbo Baggins (the uncle of Frodo) of the Hobbits, "Hobbits have been living and farming in the four Farthings of the Shire for many hundreds of years, quite content to ignore and be ignored by the world of the Big Folk. Middle-earth being, after all, full of strange creatures beyond count, Hobbits must seem of little importance, being neither renowned as great warriors nor counted among the very wise"."

Tags:hobbit, aragorn, gimli, legolas