...ESE 99 07/21/15 The Wolf on Wall Street The movie, The Wolf on Wall Street, directed by Martin Scorsese is a great movie for many reasons. The Wolf on Wall Street gives a deep message to viewers that reflect on the American Dream although in the movie it tells a story of a corrupted American dream. I definitely recommend The Wolf on Wall Street for its talented actors, the plot, and its unique message it gives to viewers. Having talented actors is the key to a good movie because they contribute to its audience emotions. Many viewers can relate to this movie especially to those who love money. The Wolf on Wall Street takes place in New York in the late 80’s. It reflects to the American dream to corporate greed, Leonardo DiCaprio plays the role of Jordan Belfort. Belfort is an American author, motivational speaker, and former stockbroker who pleaded guilty to fraud and related crimes in connection with stock market manipulation and running a boiler room as part of a penny stock scam. Belfort spent 22 months in prison as part of an agreement under which he gave testimony against numerous partners and subordinates in his fraud scheme. In the movie The Wolf of Wall Street Belfort goes from penny stocks and righteousness to IPOs and a life of corruption. Excess success and wealth in his early twenties as founder of the brokerage firm Stratton Oakmont warranted Belfort the title "The Wolf of Wall Street." Belfort came from mostly humble beginnings, and after getting married...
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...The Story I Have A Dream written By Dr. Martin Luther King was about Dr.Martin Luther King having a dream that all blacks and whites would get along one day, He had a dream that we all would be equal and treat each other with respect and kindness. Dr.King didn’t want his kids growing up feeling different from the whites. He quoted “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they not to be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”. This speeh was told at the Lincoln Memorial. Dr. King felt as if blacks was able to dine and eat with whites. Dr. King fought hard and proud to gain freedom for the African Americans. First and for most, Dr. King was someone who had his heart set...
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...the remnants of sundown exile, the systematic expulsion of African Americans once it was dark; deemed as dangerous, they were once forced to leave the boxed quarters of $110,000 median income every night… official or not, this sundown policy was in place less than thirty years ago, and its racist crumbs remain. The town, named Lake Oswego, was nicknamed Lake No Negro—fitting considering the town is 90% white and only 0.7% African American—and while sundown no longer means expulsion, there is still, to this day, protests of new trains, bus stops, and apartment buildings because, and only because, it would let them in. The town evokes a West Coast sense of racism, not articulated or verbalized, instead perpetuated through nods or looks or words like...
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...Mango Street”, Esperanza reveals personal experiences through which the reader is able to determine what kind of person she is and how she views herself. Esperanza is a young courageous, strong willed, Mexican- American girl that lives on Mango Street. Esperanza describes her sexual identity through her coming of age and how poverty affects her place in the world. She begins to feel the limitations imposed by her environment. She possesses the courage and initiative to reach beyond her neighborhood to achieve better things. Esperanza is similar but different from the other major female characters throughout the novella. The vignettes show different aspects of Esperanza’s life as it evolves and changes throughout “The House on Mango Street.” In the novella, Sally is a young girl who Esperanza befriends when she moved to Mango Street. Esperanza and Sally are the same age but Sally is more sexually bold. Sally opens up a new world to Esperanza who finds newfound sexual awareness in her friendship with the sexually adventurous Sally. From the novella it quotes “She does not like to get her stockings dirty, and she plays a more grown-up game by talking to the boys.” Esperanza’s awareness of her...
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...commercial hip-hop market. On his mid-to-late 90s Volume trilogy, Jay had steadily lost track of his confident street corner philosophy, but a series of battles led him to re-evaluate his career, resulting in the landmark album of his career: the prequel to this two-disc blowout was an inarguable masterwork of beautiful soul-struck production and serrated bling 'n' sting street rhymes sharp enough to eclipse even the heralded, barbs on 1996's world-memorized classic Reasonable Doubt. There's no deep concept or surrounding purpose behind this record: it's just pure confidence. Jay weaves his way through every imaginable style and flavor with unyielding expertise-- from the natural repetition of "A Dream" to the extreme assonance of "The Bounce" to the classic cocky confidence of "2 Many Hoes"-- driving home clear evidence that his top-tier emcee ranking is deserved, and that few could be as entitled. He's straight showing off on "Hovi Baby": somehow flowing effortlessly over Just Blaze's ridiculous 5/4 future-cop production, Jay's lyrics sound as if they were made on the will of God, with himself as the conduit and his voice as the fluid, talking about "chasin' the hi-hat all over the track" to the point that "the snare is scared of the air in here." Equally thrilling is the varied subject matter Hova touches on. Whether he's engaged in lucid conversation with Biggie ("A Dream"), contemplating the nature of his maturation in regards to relationships ("Excuse Me Miss", "Fuck All...
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...Howling in Pain There’s a silence after every chaos. There’s a calm that lingers for a period of time, a blank. Silence that makes one feel hollow and howl in pain. In HOWL, Allen Ginsberg illustrates his and his companions, the Beats’ experiences during the 1950’s. HOWL is broken down into three different parts that each depict different emotions. Ginsberg has been to different places that it seems like he is trying to escape, or looking for a place that will dissipate the feeling of loneliness. He has a tendency to travel to many different places but he always ends up coming back to himself. After the chaos that is World War II that rattled America, changes started to flower into society. During the postwar in the U.S, new poetry styles...
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...These Maries, soldiers, and sailors strip down any Chicano who was wearing a zoot suit and would publicly humiliate them by having them take their clothes off or beat them. The police department seemed to support and approve of the violence since they did not provide protection to the Chicano youth. In fact, the attacks quickly turned into a riot that lasted for nine days now known as the “ Zoot Suit Riots” (Chiodo 4). The riots were a scapegoat of the subjectivity of power in Mexican American communities. Before the riots, tensions of Mexican-American had a long history in the Los Angeles area. During this time period, Chicana/os had very limited rights and struggled to fit into the status quo provided by the United States. The song “ Pachuco...
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...The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel that takes a different spin on the stereotypical American dream. To say “through the novel, Fitzgerald puts across the idea that the American dream has been corrupted by the desire for materialism” would be accurate. Because “we see that Gatsby had a pure dream, but became corrupt in his quest towards that dream,” this is how the American dream was viewed as corrupt. Throughout the novel Gatsby displays many examples of how his quest towards the dream that was once pure, slowly becomes more and more corrupt. The first showing of corruptness in Gatsby’s dream, which is to marry Daisy, is his unethical means of obtaining a fortune. The stereotypical American dream is working hard for honest money. However, this is not the case for Gatsby. Gatsby attains his fortune through the illegal means of bootlegging. In the novel, the narrator Nick describes Gatsby, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a Son of God—a phrase that, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end” (The Great Gatsby Chapter 6 pg). This quotation shows how Nick saw Gatsby as trying to transform himself into the ideal person. He even goes as far as to...
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...Floyd Ogle Instructor: English 1A 11 September 2008 To Catch a Dream On August 28, 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., possibly one of the most eloquent, and certainly one of the most passionate men to ever share his heart, delivered a stunning and earth shaping speech. He delivered this speech not only to over 200,000 people in attendance at the Lincoln Memorial, and not even to a nation struggling with the perils of racism and equality, but to generations of people who share in a dream and strive for freedom; a dream that many still dream today. Even though we are closer now than at any point in history, we have yet to experience the freedom of which Dr. King dreamed. Racism is not a problem only in America, most every nation deals with racial issues on some level. Though none of us could ever forget the tragedy of the Holocaust, we tend to forget that it was racially motivated. Hitler’s goal was to exterminate the Jewish people. “Anne Frank was murdered by the Nazis in Bergen-Belsen [concentration camp] for being a Jew, just one of over one million Jewish children to be killed in the Holocaust” (Melchior). The Holocaust, while the most prominent, is not the only example of ethnic cleansing that the world offers. Darfur, the Sudan, Croatia, and Kosovo, just to name a few, have all dealt with this racial horror. South Africa, as well, deals with racism. As the political power shifts toward black South Africans, white South Africans face continual racial violence...
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...Jose Mota Dr. Bowens AFAS 200 25 September 2014 The Invisible Man “The Invisible Man”, written by Ralph Ellison is a literature book that was first published in early 1950’s and was immediately a masterpiece. The book is about the life of an African American narrator through his trials and suffering in a small Southern town and as a man that was never visible. The book is titled “The Invisible Man” because the Ellison wants the readers to be aware he was not invisible by a supernatural cause or and an experiment, but he’s invisible due to the fact of others unwilling to notice his existence because of the color of his skin. The narrator didn’t let his invisibility stop him because he viewed it as a constant aggravation; this suffering pain led his ways to make others recognize him. This literature by Ralph Ellison, “The Invisible Man,” shows an image to its readers what life is like for a black person during that time, they lived life but yet were noticed, they were invisible. The narrator secretly lived for free in a shut-off section of a basement of the Monopolized Light and Power Company, where he was stealing electricity from them in order to have light. What got the narrator through the times was that enjoyed listening to jazz music mainly Louis Armstrong’s music, in his secretive underground basement, this helped calm the narrator’s soul and block out struggles throughout the book. He often went into a fantasy world and escape with the music; he would imagine a scene in...
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...African Americans were proud of their roots. Being around all the arts made him more inclined to write the way he did, with a rhythm. From Langston Hughes attitudes towards women, to writing about the streets he grew up on and his struggles, it is very evident that Langston Hughes was a forerunner of rap. Langston Hughes was lucky his hit his peak during the Harlem Renaissance because that gave him the opportunity to perform and publish his work in Black magazines. Langston Hughes mirrors rappers because he wrote his poetry simplistically, so people with no education could read and understand it. Langston Hughes wasn’t just a writer he was also a performer, he would regularly perform in nightclubs to gain exposure. I’m sure that if Langston Hughes were alive today he would be performing spoken word poetry in New York night clubs, or writing lyrics for today’s rappers. Langston Hughes was so drawn to the nightlife that he dropped out of school to travel and perform his poetry, just like a lot of modern rappers chasing their dreams. In the 1923 poem, “Jazzonia”, Langston Hughes sets the poem, “In a Harlem nightclub” (1140) , and is describing the jazz players inside it. Three years later, in “Lenox avenue: midnight”, Hughes continues to write about his passion for jazz clubs. He compares jazz music to the rhythm of life. I completely know what he means when he compares the streets to a jazz rhythm. A jazz rhythm has no consistent beat, its very wild, just like the streets Hughes...
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...Main Thesis Gatsby and Tom represent the corrupt American Dream of the 1920’s through their selfishness, and narrow minded attitudes of getting what they want without considering the consequences. Body paragraphs Gatsby goes to great lengths to win Daisy’s love, which consumes his life. Little does he realize, that that dream has ended many years ago, and that he needs to wake up and see it for himself. After Gatsby’s death Nick sits on Gatsby’s lawn and reflects in everything that happened that summer. “ He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. Little did he know, that dream was already behind him… back where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under...
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...The musical art form of rap has its historical roots embedded in African culture. Thousands of years before traditional, African American rap hit the streets of the Bronx, West African griots had been rhythmically telling stories to their peers while playing simple instruments. This form of communicating messages while speaking over a beat provides the original framework for the development of contemporary rap. After African natives were shipped along the Middle Passage during the era of slavery, they would often find themselves spiritually depleted and turned toward the power of song for refuge from their horrid lives. In the fields, a designated song leader would sing a phrase of a song and the other slaves would follow with the subsequent...
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...When a person thinks about the idea of the American Dream, the first thing that comes to mind is the notion that everyone is considered equal. Everyone has the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. What is the exact definition for the American Dream? It is defined as the ideal that every US citizen should have an equal opportunity to achieve success and prosperity through hard work, determination, and initiative. The concept of the American Dream originates from the 1920’s. In an article written by John Archer, the term “self-made man” combined with a hint of success and riches gave birth to what we now know as the American (Archer 11). From that day forward, this “Dream” is the inspiration for everything U.S. citizens do in their...
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...focuses on the lessons and personal beliefs he has discovered as a black man in today’s society. He introduces a powerful message that one does not have ownership or control over their body in this world. This message is meant for his son over any other reader. From a young age, Coates experienced, from growing up in Chicago, all the horrors of the street and how black people would lose their bodies all the time. One instance he felt when he almost lost his body was when one of the boys from the neighborhood pulled a gun out in a fight. Coates understood that the knowledge was key to stay alive whether it was street or school knowledge lack of either led to death sooner or later. “Fail to comprehend the streets and you gave your body up now” (25). Coates brings in many personal anecdotes about the many bodies he has seen that have been lost....
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