The History Of The Revisionist Western Film Studies Essay

The History Of The Revisionist Western Film Studies Essay Robert Altman chronicled his own 1971 naturalist motion picture McCabe and Mrs. Miller an anti-western perhaps due to the fact that the film blatantly ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions. Westerns, a term that is used to describe the landmark mid-20th-century American film genre, are nostalgic eulogies to the early days of expansion on the untamed American frontier where fragments of civilization border on typically warm, expansive, open landscapes. McCabe Mrs. Miller, however, ignores this idyllic representation of the American frontier and, instead, Altman sets his story in the cold, murky, mountainous wilderness. Furthermore, the protagonist in McCabe Mrs. Miller deviates strongly from the traditional gun-slinging, confident cowboy that characterizes the genre. With careful attention to hyper-realistic mise-en-scà ¨ne elements (most notably elements of setting) and naturalistic, largely non-obtrusive diagetic sound effects, Robert Altman crafts a successful revi sionist western that, while retaining many of the same themes and elements pertaining to the classic western genre, differs substantially in both tone and style in ways that promulgate Altmans revisionist approach to the established genre. Since the John Ford era of western cinematography, audiences of Western films had been primed to anticipate expansive, open landscapes, red-orange deserts and plains where a sweeping sense of freedom in interrupted only by the isolated smoke signal or Native American scout. Ford often contrasted this expansive terrain with the insulated chaos of his towns, bars, and other interiors which tended to make the lone ranger protagonist claustrophobic. Immediately in the opening scene of McCabe Mrs. Miller, John Fords idyllic frontier, perhaps one of the most adored staples of the Western, is challenged. In Altmans universe, the outdoors are cold, murky, rough, and unwelcoming. Any sense of freedom in this landscape has ceased to exist. Our hero John McCabe is burdened with trekking an uneven, rocky, meandering path through the snow-capped woods a path as restrictive and uncomfortable as the harshest of Fords interiors. The mise-en-scà ¨ne elements Altman employs in this case serve to di stinguish McCabe Mrs. Miller from the classic western formula by providing a stark contrast in setting (and, by extension, tone). It is not a complete contrast, however. As film reviewer and Altman scholar, Gregory Lallone writes, Altmans interiors are just as suffocating, his untamed towns just as dangerous and ruled by greed, brutality, and chaos. It is simply a little warmer inside. Thus we may begin to analyze the lighting elements Altman employs in depicting McCabe Mrs. Millers interior locations as similarly untamed but significantly warmer than the surrounding, harsh outdoors. Altmans interiors are met with a profound use of low-key lighting to reflect this dim, foreboding, and even risquà © nature of the towns bars, businesses, and brothels. Kerosene lamps are usually the only lighting sources that cast a warm orange light onto the cameras subjects a light that strongly contrasts with the drab whites and grays of the cold wilderness. Especially prevalent during scenes at the whorehouse and during Mrs. Millers opium dreams, this orange light gives off a suitably warm, inviting, dream-like quality to the picture. While still dim and claustrophobic, the low-key indoor lighting reflects a similar push for period-authenticity (via the kerosene lamps) in conjunction with the pictures incredibly authentic set, while also serving to categorize interior sequences as warm and safeguarded (e.g. whorehouse scenes and opium dreams) or dangerous and foreboding (e.g. gambling tables and shooting hideouts). In conjunction with period-appropriate setting and lighting, naturalistic sound elements are used throughout the film to convey a sense of uninterrupted continuity unusual to the medium. Renowned film critic Roger Ebert writes in his review of the film, The is the classic Altman style It begins with one fundamental assumption: All of the characters know each other, and the camera will not stare at first one and then another, like an earnest dog, but is at home in their company. Nor do the people line up and talk one after another, like characters in a play. They talk when and as they will, and we understand its not important to hear every word; sometimes all that matters is the tone of the room. (Ebert, 1999) Rather than presenting only the vital bits of information and dialogue to the viewer to forward the films narrative, Altman instead uses ambient sound and background conversation to embroider a profound sense of location that, oftentimes, favors realism over narrative efficiency. When John McCabe first enters a saloon and settles down at a table, everyone in the saloon is under the impression that he once shot a man The air is tense and, all the while, somebody is vaguely heard in the background asking, Laura, whats for dinner? With the exception of the occasional, dreary Leonard Cohen folk tune (which, admittedly, I found distracting and out-of-place), McCabe Mrs. Miller makes no use of non-diagetic sound for dramatic effect. This is another clear departure from the traditional Hollywood string instruments (notably banjos, guitars, and fiddles), harmonicas, and bum-bum-BUMs that embellish dramatic moments in traditional western cinematography. As such, the ambient, diagetic soundtrack plays an especially central role in establishing tone and dramatic tension. During the final shootout, silence dominates so much of the audio track that every rupture of silence becomes vitally important. Each footstep, each crack of a wooden plank, and each breath McCabe takes might very well give away his position and result in his death. Thus we see that the intentional absence of non-diagetic sound can be just as effective as (if not more so than) its inclusion. Just as the frontier landscape is modulated, made somehow more truthful with the insertion of a bit of dirt and realism, the protagonist himself is similarly transformed.  While differing in many respects to the conventional western hero, John McCabe is actually not too far removed. His fight is largely the same defending what is rightfully his against outlaws and big business. He differs in that he lacks the toughness, the braggadocio, and the super-human courage of the Gary Coopers and Henry Fondas. Any shred of idealism and heroism McCabe claims to embody is counteracted by a narrow-sighted quest for profit, instances of clumsiness, and displays of outright cowardice. John McCabe is not a cowboy, a homesteader, a sheriff, or of some honorable profession; he owns a whorehouse. McCabes non-traditional characterization is further evidenced during the final showdown where the shootout is more accurately described as a slow and anxious game of cat-and-mouse. McCabe hops from one hid ing place to another knowing that winning a gunfight out in the open Gary Cooper-style is unrealistic. A true Western hero might denounce McCabes tactics as cheating and cowardly. He shoots two of the three gunmen in the back from a concealed hiding place and he overcomes the third by playing dead. Departing from the larger-than-life nature of classical western heroes, director Robert Altman injects a darker realism into his protagonist that reflects the revisionist nature of the film. McCabe Mrs. Millers final twenty minute sequence, the climactic shootout, serves as an effective microcosm for how the aforementioned mise-en-scà ¨ne and sound elements contribute to the protagonists characterization and the films overall narrative themes. Beginning with setting, the scene displays and features all of the following: The harsh, unforgiving, cold wilderness that serves to contrast with the conventional warm, expansive Western landscape. The authenticity of the towns still-in-progress wooden infrastructure that serves to accurately encapsulate the harshness and resource-conscious realism of the period. Regarding lighting, the sequence displays: The low-key hideout interiors that signify danger and dramatic tension. The warmly-lit opium den, tragically contrasting with the bitter outdoors, which in this case, falsely indicates a safe haven or retreat. And finally, the sequence displays the following effective usages of non-diagetic sound techniques: The unfocused recording of background chatter during the moments surrounding the burning church which serves to further Altmans push for realism over narrative efficiency while simultaneously contrasting with [below] The dramatic silence during McCabes cross-cutting shootout sequence interrupted by the occasional dramatic footstep, creak, breath, or gunshot sounds that increase dramatic tension. The ambient snowfall which eerily serves as a hollow, bitter replacement soundtrack throughout the sequence that increases in amplitude as McCabes body is swallowed by the elements. These mise-en-scà ¨ne and sound elements work seamlessly together to achieve what I believe was Altmans ultimate goal in the making of McCabe Mrs. Miller: to approach the Western genre with a non-traditional sense of realism and authenticity that, while retaining some of the same conventional themes and elements of the genre such as the pursuit of justice and the championing of order on the American frontier, re-envisions the two most fundamental staples of the genre: the setting and the protagonist. By making particular, non-traditional use of various mise-en-scà ¨ne and sound elements in McCabe Mrs. Miller, director Robert Altman, refutes the conventional narrative pioneered by the classic Western that the American frontier was a sort of idyllic paradise. Ford depicted the frontier as the quintessential American arena where battles were fought and won by good men who, because of their very nature, triumph over the bad. Altmans western frontier is simply no more than a showcase of lawless capitalism and greedmen and women mercilessly arguing and fighting over profits like fleas over rotting flesh. However, one must not be too quick to conclude that McCabe Mrs. Miller exists solely as an attempt to challenge or ridicule the established themes and conventions of the western genre. For while Altman does in fact transcend a number of expectations and subverts a number of established norms, the archetypal structure remains the same. The audience remains sympathetic towards the her oic gunslinger, even though the scope of that heroism is somewhat narrowed. John McCabes role as the gunfighting goodie struggling against an oppressive force of injustice and greed stems directly from the Western genre. Rather than conceding to define McCabe Mrs. Miller as an outright anti-western, we can analyze how Altmans stylistic elements both propagate parallels to established conventions while, at other times, delineate clear departures from the genre that serve to effectively categorize the film as none other than a revisionist western narrative and a cinematographic work of art. ________________

Stress In The Medical Field Psychology Essay

Stress In The Medical Field Psychology Essay Problems of stress in various professions have attracted the attention of psychologists of different directions for a long time. A big majority of classical studies have shown that prolonged stress exposure leads to such adverse effects as the decrease in overall mental stability of the organism, the emergence of dissatisfaction of its activities, the tendency to reject assignments in situations of increased requirements, setbacks and defeats. Analysis of the factors that cause similar symptoms in different activities shows that there is a number of professions in which a person begins to feel self emotionally drained by the internal need for continuous contact with other people. It is a well-known fact that the medical profession like any other is related to interpersonal interaction, so timely diagnosis and correction of such violations are highly relevant to doctors and nurses. Thus, we are going to discuss stress in the medical field combining its impact on professional doctors a ctivities and personal lives. First of all, the interest in occupational stress in doctors is provoked by general trend towards the humanization of modern science, which is reflected in a wide variety of industries from the theory of management teams, to the fundamental philosophical epistemology and methodology of science. One manifestation of this trend is attracting the attention of researchers to the subject of professional activity, in particular the effect of chosen occupation on the nature and character of the person. Another reason for interest in this problem is the tightening of requirements for the professionals of different profiles and requirements tempo and rhythm of a modern lifestyle. The requirements for representatives of the so-called helping professions need additional attention, because their psycho-physiological state directly influences the effectiveness of their professional activities, whose importance in contemporary society can hardly be overestimated. In particular, studying of this problem in the annex to the medical staff is the question of extremely high importance, because exactly a human life is often the possible price of any mistake in their activities. Thus, the group of observation is doctors who provide mental, urgent, or palliative care and doctors in hospices. In psychology under the term stress we should understand the mental stress that occurs in humans under the influence of complicated, difficult, unfortunate circumstances of activities and daily life, or in special, extreme situations. As the stressors (the factors leading to the rise of human stress in short-term, and to the development of severe, long-lasting experiences) can be adverse physical effects of environmental emergencies, physical and psychological trauma, etc. Mental stress that arises under the influence of stressors may be a useful adaptive significance, mobilizing people to overcome difficulties. This phenomenon, for example, is well known to athletes or actors, prestarting excitement which serves as a setting for the upcoming activities. However, if stress is too high because of the intensity of exposure or its unexpectedness, human resources may be insufficient to cope with stress, and it begins to have a destructive effect on the person until the appearance of physiological disorders and complete disorganization of human life. Observing stress factors among doctors in hospices we see that exactly among people of this occupation the problem of occupational stress acutely announced itself at the present time, because in the modern post-industrial society, peoples attitude to work is changing at a pace that does not come across any previous generation. In developed countries, especially today, when the economic crisis continues, workers are increasingly losing confidence in the stability of their own social and material status, warranty in the workplace, and material well-being. Competition for the prestigious and highly paid job is rather high nowadays. On the one hand, parallel processes are taking a narrow specialization in the profession, and on the other hand the globalization of related industries is popular. Demand of the labor market is changing rapidly and facing some difficulties, one can not fully realize the accumulated energy due to physiological stress. As a result this energy begins to destroy human character and soul. In this case, instead of completely normal stress reactions the organism begins to literally tear apart the mechanisms of distress, when the energy can not be realized in constructive activities. As a consequence, a mental, emotional stress associated with stress in the workplace increases. People find in their behavior symptoms of revealed anxiety, depression, emotional burnout syndrome, psychosomatic disorders and other malfunctions. It leads to growing dependence on psychoactive substances, including alcohol, tranquilizers and other psychotropic substances. Thus, the data presented in Dollard, Winefield Winefield work shows that 81,4 % of examined doctors, 85,9% of nurses and 79,8% of medical students use alcohol. Also 33,3% of surveyed students regularly drink beer and other alcoholic drinks. (Dollard, Winefield Winefield, 2003). Thinking about the future of medical students and according to Levey we see that medical students are inundated with stress from the start of their medical training as they attempt to adjust to lifestyle changes and increasing hassles incurred by the demands of medical education. Characteristics commonly associated with medical training and identified as situational or professional stressors include: variable hour shifts, sleep deprivation, cumbersome administrative responsibilities, poor administrative support, and curriculum overload (Levey, 2001). Dollard, Winefield Winefield stated that Additional characteristics are: perceived lack of professional knowledge and skills, health care policy changes, difficult patients, patient care, life and death situations, and unexpected shill in academic performance. Further stressors mentioned in the literature include family responsibilities, incurring financial debt, decreased chances for social, leisure, or physical activities, decreased s upport network due to relocation, cultural and minority issues, and inadequate coping skills (Dollard, Winefield Winefield, 2003). The interest for the topic of stress in the medical field was provoked by Wicks words who wrote in the foreword for his own book, describing the appearance of stress and hardships of medical profession, the following: Who among us has not identified with the young leukemia patient who is refractory to treatment and scared to death, or the midcareer professional deeply unresponsive and too young to have had this massive stroke, or parents trying to absorb into their consciousness the sudden accidental death of a child? Instead of the afflicteds Why me? the caregivers frightened imponderable becomes Why not me? What roll of the dice, what act of fate, what divine intervention preserves me from any one of these circumstances? What makes it possible for physicians and nurses to confront these patients and circumstances day after day with caring and therapeutic resolve and to walk the balance beam between the paralyzing fear of their own mortality and the numbness of emotional disengageme nt or indifference? And while the hospital environment is the epicenter of personal exposure, the reminders are distributed ones day from office visits with patients to telephone calls with distraught family members. In each encounter, we see ourselves separated from our patients circumstances by the luck of the draw but believe at a subconscious level that we are somehow protected. Its like wearing a Red Cross arm badge in the battlefield. (Wicks, 2006) This phrase deeply impacts on people who work in the medical field and we can say with confidence that the structure of clinical manifestations of occupational stress among specialists of the helping professions (so-called emotional burnout) includes different features that bring together this phenomenon with the number of traditional mental (such as asthenic neurosis), and psychosomatic disorders. This state of affairs suggests the presence of etiopathogenetic structure of occupational stress in psychological level, playing almost the leading role in the origin and development of this phenomenon. WHO European Ministerial Conference (2005) noted that the stress associated with work, is an important issue for about one-third of workers in the European Union. The cost of solving problems related to mental health in this context includes in average 3-4% of gross national income of developed countries (Wicks, 2006). Observing literature about stress in medical field it was found that among physicians (as it was mentioned above the focus group for this project is doctors in hospices) as among other health professionals, there is a higher incidence of mental disorders compared with the averages in the population, and it is generally considered that it is connected with the peculiarities of the medical profession. In 1997, one of the issues of the journal Advances in Psychiatric Treatment was devoted to the overall theme of mental disorders among physicians with an emphasis on phenomenology and treatment. Interviewing Dr. Thomas, who is the doctor in hospice it was found that stress greatly influences not only professional life, but also personal life of any doctor. Dr. Thomas stated that often the patients life depends on the timely receipt of adequate medical care for high-quality rendering of which the doctor of hospice requires self-discipline, high level of concentration and clarity of action. The need for rapid decision-making under tough time constraints and information leads to long-term emotional suspense and, as a consequence, the development of stress. Dr. Thomas also mentioned during the interview that among health care workers professionals who are most distinguished by a heightened sense of responsibility, willingness to always come to the aid for the patient, the desire to be important, the desire to provide psychological support, a high degree of moral duty to the patient and the desire to conform to certain ethical-deontological requirements, experiences about their professional competence are in the group of risk for the stress development. While making the research of stress in the medical field it was found that according to British researchers as it was stated by Levey, in 41% of the cases among general practitioners high levels of anxiety are revealed, and clinically evident depression is present in 26% of cases. (Levey, 2001). The third part of doctors use medication for correction of emotional stress, and the amount of alcohol use exceeds the average level. According to Wicks stress is provoked by three types of factors in the big majority of cases (Wicks, 2006). In such situation personal role and organizational factors have the leading place in the medical field. Personal factor. It describes burning doctors as sympathetic, humane, gentle, fond, idealists, people-oriented, and at the dame time unstable, introverted, obsessed by fixed ideas, fiery and easily identifying themselves personalities. Role factor. The relationship between the role conflict, role ambiguity and emotional burnout was observed many decades ago. Wicks stated that employment in the case of a clear division of responsibility limit the development of stress in the medical field (Wicks, 2006). Moreover, doctors who feel fuzzy or uneven distribution of responsibility for their professional actions, understand that this factor increases sharply, even at much lower workload. Organizational factor. The main organizational factors that contribute to stress burnout include: high workload, lack or absence of social support from colleagues and management, insufficient remuneration for work, a high degree of uncertainty in assessing the work performed; inability to influence decision-making process; ambiguous requirements for the work; the constant risk of penalties, monotonous and unpromising activities, the need to outwardly show emotion, that is not conform to reality, lack of holidays, vacations and interests outside of the own medical profession. It is also necessary to mention that among the other important factors in the development of stress are the destabilizing organization of activities and unfavorable psychological atmosphere in the team. Making the accent on the development of stress among doctors of hospice we should mention that high medical pressure, twenty-four-hour regimen with the mandatory duty, the expectation of complications in the condition of patients require a high functional activity of the organism and can be qualified as the leading professional pathogenic factors. In addition, an aggravating effect on the health of workers has the contact with dying patients when the health worker does not see the positive results of the own efforts to save the patient and often feels his own weakness. As a result there can be mentioned developing brain disorders in the form of neurosis, hypertension, stenocardia, ulcers of the gastrointestinal tract and other health problems. It is obvious that professional activities often have an adverse impact on individuals that leads to depression. The greater medical workload lead to the fact that health care worker experiences less pleasure from the process of his own work. Exceeding regulatory number of patients, a large amount of clerical work-design, low technical equipment of the workplace and the permanent shortage of drugs also contribute to the manifestations of fatigue and nervousness. From the ergonomic factors doctors in the hospice often observe eye strain, overload of the musculoskeletal system. Thinking about the way how stress in the medical field relates to culture it is possible to say that the recent radical changes in society have an additional psychological burden on the medical staff, since society needs the higher quality workers in a much shorter time since economic restrictions are providing health services. Innovation activities of health care institutions is focused on the practical use of scientific and technical results and intellectual capacity to expand the range of services, methods for their production, to improve quality of care and meet patients needs for high quality medical services, and ultimately to optimize the level of health among population. The most part of health professionals who work in an innovative environment, have long working hours, overtime, associated with combining positions or additional training workload (training, development of new methods of diagnosis and treatment). Intensification of professional activities affects the health, helping to increase the level of overall incidence and prevalence of chronic diseases. In addition to the above observed facts Dr. Thomas stated that people working in health care facilities are often subjected to considerable personal stress They have problems in the private life because they cannot show their feelings to other people and have the predominant feature of the medical profession to deny the problems related to personal health. Due to the research work in the medical field we can state that among doctors in hospice there is a widespread idea that the stress at work is like a failure and doctors own weakness. Thats why stress calls denials based on the feeling of guilt and leads to the fact that doctors have many difficulties in admitting of the existence of these problems, respectively, it is difficult to share and solve them timely. Thinking about the negative impact of stress on the work of any doctor we should pay the specific attention to the fact that development of this state contributes to certain personality traits a high level of emotional lability (neuroticism), high self control, especially when expressing negative emotions with the desire to suppress them, the rationalization of the motives of personal behavior, a tendency to increased anxiety and depressive reactions associated with unattainability of internal standard and blocking negative emotions, rigid personality structure. The paradox is that the ability of health care workers to deny their own negative emotions can sometimes be a power in their hands, but often it becomes their weakness. Therefore it is useful to remember that we are always a part of our problem, or part of their solutions is always in our mind. Thus, the fieldwork shows that the syndrome of burnout is accompanied by the daily, routine professional work, often requiring from physicians a sufficiently intense, not spontaneous, unimportantly conflict, but for different reasons emotionally intense communication with patients, and therefore it is not associated with its extreme conditions. So, it becomes clear why frequency and intensity of this syndrome are much higher among oncologists and doctors in hospice than among surgeons or traumatologists. It is impossible to leave without attention the fact that the restriction of the possibility of using existing personal potential, the monotony of work, a high degree of uncertainty in the assessment of the work, dissatisfaction with social status are noted among the characteristics of communicative professions that have a significant impact on the development of stress. And only after the above numerated factors physicians emphasized that they considered low pay and poor working conditions as stress factors, considering them important, but not leading, as it often seems to be the sources of occupational stress in health care workers. Conformity / fail capabilities of professional in the medical field and social conditions of his activities lie in the focus of the problem of occupational stress. Therefore, this issue was explored in complex of specialist communication profession and its social environment. Emotional infectiousness burnout syndrome, which also emphasizes its social nature plays also an important role in the discussion of the information in this project. In conclusion, stress in the medical field and occupational stress in its wide sense are not the problem of difficult people, but the problem of difficult (unsolved) cases in the relationship and structure of interpersonal relations, fuzzy symbols of social roles and responsibilities, lack of emotional support from counterparts and leaders.

Comparing The Elements of Style and Grace and Style Toward Clarity and Grace :: Compare Contrast Comparison

Comparing The Elements of Style and Grace and Style Toward Clarity and Grace Webster’s dictionary defines style as a particular or distinctive fashion, form or manner. This leaves much unsaid in context to the world of writing. Everyone looks at style differently because everyone has their own interpretation of what it is. The Elements of Style and Grace and Style Toward Clarity and Grace are two different books. Though these books have many differences, a lot of the ideas are the same; they are just written in different styles. I do not believe either one to be overly better than the other. They were both written at different times with different objectives in mind, and you have to take that for what it is worth. Writing is hardly ever done with just one sentence. It is a combination of sentences that all have to coincide with one another to reach a goal of clarity. "A series of clear sentences can still be confusing if we fail to design them to fit their context, to reflect a constant point of view, to emphasize our most important ideas. These sentences could all refer to the same set of conditions, but each leads us to understand the conditions from a different point of view," (Williams, 45). It is always a good idea to start out small; take a sentence and make is clear. This then needs to be applied to groups of sentences together to make the whole sample of writing clear. Strunk and White had a lot of good advice about how to make writing clear and concise. One good point made in the book was about dialogue. When there is dialogue in writing, it is extremely annoying not to know who is speaking. "In long dialogue passages containing no attributes, the reader may become lost and be compelled to go back and reread in order to puzzle the thing out," (Strunk and White, 76). When a person is trying to read an extensive piece, it can become such a hassle to have to look back a lot to see which character is saying what. Not only does it deter the reader, but it greatly damages the credibility of the author and the work that he or she produces. In my writing experience I have had sentences criticized on the basis of length. Teachers always told me that they were too long.

Mexico and the Quest for Economic Improvement :: Free Essays Online

Mexico and the Quest for Economic Improvement Karl Marx once stated, â€Å" A commodity appears at first sight, a very trivial thing and easily understood. It’s analysis shows that it is in reality, a very queer thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.† Ironically, Marx would have never anticipated the conflict over queer space that I am going to detail. The commodification of Aguascalientes, Mexico has been nonetheless a very queer thing indeed. The space in Aguascalientes has been torn apart by competing ideals surrounding sexuality and gay and lesbian identity, yet both sides in this competition have a common interest: selling a specific commodity—namely, the space of Aguascalientes In September 2000, Mr. Jorge Alvarez Medina, the Director of Regulations of Aguascalientes, in the Mexican state of Aguascalientes, publicly announced his opposition to gays, lesbians, and transgender people. He stated that he will â€Å"not allow ‘this type of people’ access to any public facility or allow them to work in the public sector.† Medina also claimed that Aguascalientes needed to portray a cleaner image to the public. Many LGBT and human rights organizations claim this act to be â€Å"prejudiced, corrupt, and violent.† The order made by Medina is also a threat to Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, â€Å"All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection before the law.† This is only one of the many events that have occurred in Aguascalientes pertaining to gay, lesbian and transgender relations, where, according to some estimates, there are more than 12,200 gays (more than 10% of overall population). By analyzing these statements made by Medina, many questions arise. If Medina is tying to portray a â€Å"cleaner image† in the city of Aguascalientes, for whom is this image? Curiously the Mexonline website gives Aguascalientes a different reputation, contradicting Medina’s biased proposal. The Mexonline website gives its audience the impression that Aguascalientes has a very accepting and diverse society. The website states, â€Å" Aguascalientes is well positioned to mull full-steam ahead into the 21st century. We are well aware that our future rests on our export capacity. World business leaders, who have already located in the state, share our vision and, together with our local business community, our industrious labor force, and our imaginative policy makers, have joined hands and laid the foundation for a prosperous and happy society in this, ‘the state of friendly people.

In Defence of Harry Flashman Essay

It is understandable why the first mention of the character of Harry Flashman – the opportunistic philanderer of his Majesty’s service who lied and cheated his cowardly way through the Victorian pages of his fictional memoirs by George MacDonald Fraser – is enough to deter the browsing lady, though far be it from anyone to say it should. Since patterns of book-buying snake across the sexes like a flailing sidewinder, it would be hopeless to say as to where on the shop shelf the hand might lay to rest. Nevertheless, for a series of stories far too overlooked for the public’s common good, what could the otherwise fairer sex also find to appreciate in a man whose charm seems as fictitious as the women who fall for it? To put it more simply: can this man – to borrow the blurb – be all bad? If the name â€Å"Flashman† is shouting forward from the back of your mind, dare the â€Å"Lord Flashheart† be named as the bothering heckler? Don’t think him an unwanted associate, for ‘Blackadder’s’ slavering womaniser could be seen as an exaggeration of the â€Å"Flashman persona† and certainly close to what Harry himself may have become had he not, by hand and boot of queen and empire, been thrown into the Flemingesque scenarios he haphazardly emerged from, some the wiser and better-shaped. Unlike the all-consuming debauchery of his comedic counterpart, Harry’s lechery is merely a tempered impetus; punctuating his desire for the English comforts that makes for the only form of patriotism you’ll see in him, if you can call it patriotism – the patriotism of Bond it most certainly is not. What differs Harry from James is awareness, and when taking stock, the idiom trumps the ammo. It would be daft to credit Harry’s decision making with the weighing of political consequence, however; that would be a laughable excuse; something he doesn’t begin to admit. It’s fear that has his mind running back to the jolly English riff-raff and the spread of beds that await. Though isn’t to think with your legs the best strategy for the reporter? Reluctant maybe, Harry is a better reporter than he is a soldier. This cowardice kept him alive ’til a time when he could afford to admit the truth. Concerning the First Afghan War, the truth about a man, General Elphinestone who single-handedly stripped the meat from his ranks as he rung them through the Khord-Kabul pass on their retreat from Afghanistan. Long after witnessing rom on high, the massacre of the regiments from which he had high-tailed the night before, Flashman verbally guts he whom he declares â€Å"No fate could be bad enough for†: â€Å"I still state unhesitatingly, that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgement – in short for the true talent for catastrophe, Elphy outshines all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day†¦ † Now what a sorry waste of insightful wit it would have been to have it lost amidst the idiot pride of a fellow more gallant than Harry. Elphinestone is not alone; Harry considers many of the figures he meets to be – to varying degrees – morons, despite his care to concede a grace here and there. It’s no surprise that he met such a top-heavy pile of fools; he was, after all, involved in some of the worst disasters of British imperialism – all the more reason to flee when he could. But you know the fastidious type. Perhaps you’ve a friend whom fits this description, in which case, you’ll understand how empowering it feels to have them praise you – you’re worth a cheer! When chance encounter pairs Harry with one he considers of rare dignity, you too, as the reader, hold them as praiseworthy, or rather, worthy of investigation. It was in 1842 when he jumped into the carriage of Lola Montez – an Irish dancer girl turned adventuress of Europe whose life was spent â€Å"playing with kingdoms† as one might romantically say. Her appearances in ‘Royal Flash’ are glimpses; moments too brief to capture her entirety, yet he alludes to a life beyond the pages with so delicate a respect that one is inspired to follow. Whilst Harry never himself existed, he may as well have. It’s very easy to speak of his personality as anything but fictional. Perhaps to no great surprise considering we get to know the fellow through his own confessions, worded not merely to the benefit of his own authenticity, either. The true blue honesty rubs off well onto those he brushes shoulders with. It’s what we have to thank this bounder for – dramatising without disfiguring a past of characters pallid to most today and enriching the pursuit of history for ourselves. Harry once said about the Earl of Cardigan, that some human faults are military virtues; for Harry, some human faults are literary virtues.

How can we solve banning hijab problem Essay

The issue of hijab is one of the most controversial and hotly debated issue which has merged in the European, especially French scene with regard to racial and religious and gender based discrimination in the 21st century. It is sensitive religious issue which has impacted the education of a section of religious sect on a very substantial front. This ban got implemented by French government on 2nd September, 2004 and has been taken up by the legal and political activists in various parts of Europe like Germany, Belgium and other nations worldwide. This has brought to the surface the worlds conflict with regard to protection of women in Islam from gender discrimination and imposition of extreme fundamentalist view which reinforces the superiority. As Binnaz Toprak expresses; â€Å"The scarf is a symbol of the inferior status of women† (Viewpoint). It is important for Muslim men not impose such discrimination of gender publicly which reinforces in countries which support equality of status by forcing on young school going children the visible discrimination which is offensive to the society in which they have chosen to immigrate. The national laws and observances need o be respected an integrated whenever there is the possibility and intentional decision to chose a new residence with permanent status. The issue of banning hijab is an ethical issue which can have philosophical as well as ideological touch which makes the issue very controversial and complicated. This is also a very multicultural issue which brings the issue of world conflict into the classroom atmosphere and hence legislation and strong measures taken by the French government has been the triggering the issue which has been supported by many European and western nations even central Asian countries. â€Å"French right wing President Jacques Chirac’s poli cy to impose a ban on the wearing of the Islamic veil (hijab) by girls in schools has split the left – both in France and internationally.†(Workers Power). The issue is very sensitive issue which addresses the radical belief of very extremist and racist society which has chosen to immigrate in liberal nations worldwide. It is also a strong religious imposition which has been challenged by the secular countries which do not want such open expression to be part of the school atmosphere. The problem related to the ban on hijab should be encouraged as a message to this orthodox community. The extremist nature of such social order and racist belief does need to be addressed with firmness abut sensitive approach which is based on education and awareness rather than strong legal imposition. The issue should be addressed as secular issue which has to be made a fundamental pillar which should be presented as an integrated strategy to support the socialist and political issues which can be addressed by campaigns and education conferences. There should be introduction of programmes which support such campaigns and does not directly challenge the d ogmatic beliefs which reinforces religious teaching on and universal platform. The issue is more a socialist issue which aims to remove any strong religious bias which has been associated with the history of racism. The racist issue is another dimension to this problem of banning hijab, which has been a cultural expression which is indicator of oppressive status of women in certain cultural societies and which has not yet been challenged with force and support which is strong enough to break the dogmatic and extremist imposition. The stricture which provides the details of using veil and hijab in Muslim society has been clearly defined and dictated in Quran and has been an indicator of strong oppression toward feminine gender. It is important that people who take the imitative to move out for economic or social reasons to new liberal country would be open minded enough to embrace the progressive nature of the society and give opportunity to their children and women to have equal rights and respect them with civility. This would also allow for their easy assimil ation within the new social network and not make them stand out as different in an inferior sort of manner. It can also be an awkward situation for people who have not seen such treatment to women in their culture to accept such oppressive and discriminatory display by attire in their tradition. This can also lead to hostile situation in which oppression along with racial bias can make the transition difficult for the hijab wearing masses within the new liberal communities. The issue of hijab especially when dealing with extremist approach of the Muslim community who are staunch followers of the teachings of Quoran should be reinforced by the fact that support should be given to women’s right and religious based bias should not impede their children based on cultural and religious and racial impositions. The policy and legal support should reinforce tolerance as well as understanding which would go to an enormous way in making individual rights to have free expression as strong phenomenon which can support the issue with sensitivity and force which can help foster understanding and acceptance. It should be stressed that ban on hijab is to reduce the barrier which is an expression of oppression and gender bias, and the objective is to encourage gender integration and discourage gender segregation. The powerful message of integration would be the key to getting cooperation and support which can help the issue of banning hijab.

Critical Disagreement Essay

Few modern writers reveal a more consistent intellectual development than Ernest Hemingway. In both his themes and the meaning he has found in them he has moved steadily and even logically from the earliest work of In Our Time to the significant orientation of The Fifth Column. The logic of this development has for the most part remained unnoticed by critics who have failed to realize that Hemingway, far from being a child of nature, is in fact an intellectual. They have presented him, consequently, as a sort of savage endowed with style, gifted but brainless. A Farewell to Arms ( 1929) takes us to the Italian front and includes a vivid account of the terrible retreat from Caporetto. An American lieutenant in the Italian Red Cross falls in love with an English nurse and she with him. Both have previously suffered more attrition than human nerves can stand, and in their passionate attachment they find a psychological refuge from the incessant horror of war. They escape to brief happiness in Switzerland, but in giving birth to a child the girl dies. The ending is far from inevitable. It is a comment on the looseness of Hemingway’s artistry that the moving picture version of this novel was equipped with alternative sad and happy conclusions. In A Farewell to Arms it is society as a whole that is rejected, social responsibility, social concern. Lieutenant Henry is in the War, but his attitude toward it is purely that of a spectator, refusing to be involved. He is leading a private life as an isolated individual. Even personal relations, of any depth or intimacy, he avoids; he drinks with the officers and talks with the priest and visits the officers’ brothel, but all contacts he keeps, deliberately, on a superficial level. He has rejected the world. Such an attitude is possible only to a sensitive and reflective person. Henry is no naive barbarian. He was studying architecture in Italy when the War began; he makes ironical remarks about sculptures and bronzes; his reflections and conversation contain allusions to Samuel Johnson, Saint Paul, Andrew Marvell, and Sir Thomas Wyatt. His flight from responsibility is the ultimate of the flight that Jake and Brett and Mike were trying to effect with drink and bullfights and sex. He is evading responsibility and emotion, taking refuge in simple primary sensations. Successfully, so far as the War is concerned: â€Å"I was always embarrassed by the words sacred, glorious and sacrifice and the expression in vain . . . Abstract words, such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene beside the concrete names of villages, the number of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates. † Characterization Hemingway’s greatness lies not in the range of his characterization or the suppleness of his style but in the astonishing perfection of these limited objectives. As Wilhelm points out, â€Å"the oppressive weight of death and anxiety in this object composition, subtly framed for the reader’s perusal, undercuts the scene’s â€Å"mask of well-being†Ã¢â‚¬â€œtwo wartime colleagues bonding rather sophomorically in their desire for women. Henry imbues the elements of this expansive still life with symbolic import, foreshadowing events to come. Because objects are frequently used for characterization, Henry’s possessions provide visual clues to the reader, but only as fragments in the larger narrative that withhold their essential meaning until the text’s conclusion†. (Wilhelm) The very intensity of Hemingway’s â€Å"nihilism† in his first stories and novels proved, however, that his need for an ideal expression in art was the mark of a passionate romanticist who had been profoundly disappointed. The anguish of his characters was too dramatic, too flawless; it was too transparent an inversion. The symbols Hemingway employed to convey his sense of the world’s futility and horror were always more significant than the characters who personified emotions, and the characters were so often felt as personified emotions that the emotions became sentimental. The gallery of expatriates in The Sun Also Rises were always subsidiary to the theme that the period itself was lost; the lovers in A Farewell to Arms were, as Edmund Wilson has said, the abstractions of a lyric emotion. Hemingway had created a world of his own socially more brilliant than life, but he was not writing about people living in a world; he was dealing in stock values again, driving his characters between the two poles of a tremulous inner exaltation and an absolute frustration. What he liked best was to invoke the specter of damnation. But A Farewell to Arms is a tragedy, and the lovers are shown as innocent victims with no relation to the forces that torment them. They themselves are not tormented within by that dissonance between personal satisfaction and the suffering one shares with others which it has been Hemingway’s triumph to handle. A Farewell to Arms, as the author once said, is a Romeo and Juliet. And when Catherine and her lover emerge from the stream of action–the account of the Caporetto retreat is Hemingway’s best sustained piece of narrative–when they escape from the alien necessities of which their romance has been merely an accident, which have been writing their story for them, then we see that they are not in themselves convincing as human personalities. And we are confronted with the paradox that Hemingway, who possesses so remarkable a mimetic gift in catching the tone of social and national types and in making his people talk appropriately, has not shown any very solid sense of character, or indeed, any real interest in it. The people in his short stories are satisfactory because he has only to hit them off: the point of the story does not lie in personalities, but in the emotion to which a situation gives rise. This is true even in The Sun Also Rises, where the characters are sketched with wonderful cleverness. But in A Farewell to Arms, as soon as we are brought into real intimacy with the lovers, as soon as the author is obliged to see them through a searching personal experience, we find merely an idealized relationship, the abstractions of a lyric emotion. Against the gaiety, the warmth of ‘A Farewell to Arms,’ Hemingway portrays, of course, the cumulative degeneration of the human temperament under the conditions of war. The novel is a series of human defeats within one continuous and terrible sequence: the rains, the cholera, the soldiers who mutilate themselves rather than go on fighting, the growing weariness of the Italian army which led up to Caporetto, the degeneration of Rinaldi himself who is symptomatic of the novel’s pattern, and at its start is so quick and alive. Contrasted against this in turn, in the love of Lieutenant Henry and Catherine Barkley we have another antithesis of increasing joy. The love and the despair are constantly related, intensely intertwined, and in the end almost gain the feeling of life and death themselves: the death preying upon the living organism of the lovers’ hope, eating into the flesh and destroying the form from page to page. Yet each change of form, each advance of destruction makes the life of the novel more vital, the life we know must yield, but in the manner of its yielding asserting itself beyond its destruction. A Farewell to Arms in this sense lies quite outside of the pattern of Hemingway’s development which we have been showing. For the feeling of tragedy in the novel comes precisely from the struggle to participate in life despite all the odds, from the efforts of the lovers to fulfill themselves in a sterile world, from the exact impact of the human will which Hemingway has negated. Yet even here we must notice that Lieutenant Henry turns his back upon our society after Caporetto. Following his personal objectives he abandons his friends, his responsibilities as an officer, the entire complex of organized social life represented by the army and the war. This farewell to arms is accomplished without request or permission. Lieutenant Henry, in fact, deserts, and his action is prophetic of his author’s own future movement. ‘You and me,’ says Nick to the Rinaldi of ‘In Our Time,’ ‘we’ve made a separate peace. ‘ And Hemingway’s separate peace was to embrace the woods of Michigan as well as Caporetto, the activities of normal times as well as war, and even at last the ordinary purposes of the individual’s life within his society, as well as the collective purposes of society as a whole. Conclusion A Farewell to Arms is even more strictly the story of one man; here, even more than in The Sun Also Rises, the reader feels the cleft between the primary and secondary figures. Both books have the foreshortening of time which is more properly the privilege of the drama than of the traditional novel a technique toward which, since Hemingway demonstrated its immense value, American fiction has been striving with remarkable persistence. Back in the nineteenth century, when people like Henry James and Paul Bourget were taking such distinctions seriously, books like these would have been classified as novelas. I have some difficulty in feeling any wide gap between books in which Hemingway is reporting upon young men who are in character-tastes, occupations, age very much like himself, and books in which he drops the pretense of fiction in order to discuss the same materials in definite reference to himself. And why, to come directly to the main question, do we have to consider Death in the Afternoon and Green Hills of Africa such failures, anyway? One may not be particularly interested in bullfighting and still find that the considered statement, by an accomplished artist, regarding the effect on his own personality of the study of the world’s most stylized form of violence is a document of extraordinary interest, particularly if the artist is making a special effort to see himself clearly at the time. We can also agree with Edmund Wilson that as a book about animals Green Hills of Africa is dull, as we can agree with Max Eastman that as a manual of tauromachy Death in the Afternoon is silly, and still be passionately interested in Hemingway’s report on himself as a killer. I imagine the answer is that we were concerned by the apparent disappearance of a novelist who seemed to be losing his grip. Hemingway himself was aware of the danger and discoursed upon it for the benefit of the German traveler in the beginning of Green Hills of Africa. He also seemed to feel the danger of losing his memory for sharply characterized sensations, so essential to his kind of writing. In the books after 1930 he seems disproportionately intent on catching things before he forgets them. Works Cited Balbert, Peter. â€Å"Courage at the Border-Line: Balder, Hemingway, and Lawrence’s the Captain’s Doll. † Papers on Language & Literature 42. 3 (2006) Bloom, Harold, ed. Ernest Hemingway†s a Farewell to Arms. Philadelphia: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987. Giles, Todd. â€Å"Simon and Schuster’s Hemingway Audio Collection. † The Hemingway Review 26. 1 (2006) Onderdonk, Todd. â€Å"†Bitched†: Feminization, Identity, and the Hemingwayesque in the Sun Also Rises. † Twentieth Century Literature 52. 1 (2006) Trodd, Zoe. â€Å"Hemingway’s Camera Eye: The Problem of Language and an Interwar Politics of Form. † The Hemingway Review 26. 2 (2007) Wagner-Martin, Linda, ed. Seven Decades of Criticism Seven Decades of Criticism. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 1998. Whitlow, Roger. Cassandra’s Daughters: The Women in Hemingway. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1984. Wilhelm, Randall S. â€Å"Objects on the Table: Anxiety and Still Life in Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms. † The Hemingway Review 26. 1 (2006)