...Malcolm DuBose Dr. Paul A. Cimbala Seminar:Civil War Soldiers Essay 3 The extent of political ideology as a motivational factor for soldiers in the American Civil War was so great that it changed the historical narrative of the war for veterans and future southerners. In his semi-biographical book, The Making of a Confederate, Williams L. Barney uses the life of an elite Western North Carolina planter named Walter Lenoir, and his descent into the Lost Cause ideology. Barney presents Lenoir as a comparatively liberal man of the time. Educated at his home states university, prior to the attack on Fort Sumner he planned to move to Minnesota, a fairly young state that was actively recruiting Americans from other states and Europeans to solidify population dominance over the inhabitant native tribes. Barney characterizes the Lost Cause phenomenon as an attachment to the faded glory of a romanticized Confederate past. Using Williams L. Barney as a model of the Confederate soldier, his choice of subject varies from the popular trend of studying the poor southern confederate soldiers and his motivations. Lenoir, an elite southern planter was the quintessential model of who would most benefit from a victorious south. Though southern identity contains it fare share of myriad ambiguities, Barney presents a semi-biographical analysis that precisely dissects the often-proclaimed complexity of the Lost Cause narrative. With intention, Barney shows that the preservation of slavery...
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...,Compare and contrast the narrative structure of at least two of the films studied. Your answer should also evaluate the reasons why these structures were chosen. Since the commercial success of Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Amores Perros in the year 2000, there has been an indubitable resurgence in the amount of interest in, and amount of films being produced within Mexico. This picture, as well as Y Tu Mamá También (2001) by Alfonso Cuarón both received worldwide acclaim and have set a high benchmark for the other Mexican releases since the millennium to live up to. This essay will explore the prominence of narrative structure in the aforementioned Amores Perros (2001), as well as Amat Escalante’s Los Bastardos (2008) and Guillermo Del Toro’s El Espinazo del Diablo (2001). The constituents of a film’s narrative structure come under two different entities: the content of the film’s story, and the way in which the story is presented to the spectator. Vis-à-vis the content of the films story, the essay will mention how, on a thematic level, these films each rely heavily on the use of violence to delineate its message and intentions. James Kendrick states that the use of violence in a film is employed as a structuring device and it is evident that each of these films uses violence for differing intentions, of which the essay will later make discernible. Subsequently, the essay will contrast the order in which the stories are presented to the viewer, chiefly, regarding how Amores...
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...the Civil War and how Lincoln was involved in most of the changes that happen during the War, For example the political and social issues, and the slaves that were liberated in the south. In this book McPherson tells us that president Lincoln was a conservative and a revolutionary. The War made Lincoln very popular because of his leadership ability and strategy. He is the most important president who fought to keep young stay whole. James McPherson best known for his prize winning book “Battle cry of Freedom,” which was the New York Times Book Review called one of top history writing. It is an account of the Civil War, which McPherson gathered in a sweep of events, which accounts the political, social, and culture aspects during the Civil War. In Abraham Lincoln and the Second Revolution, McPherson takes a different style of writing by offering a series of engaging essays on Lincoln and the Civil War that have rarely been discussed in such depth. McPherson displays his insight prose as he thoroughly examines the critical- themes of American history. He examines the President’s role as commander- in -chief of the Union forces explaining how Lincoln forged a national military strategy for victory. He exposes how Lincoln used parables and figurative language to communicate the purpose of the War as well as a new meaning of liberty for the people of the North. The title derives from McPherson, examining the Civil War as America’s...
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...idea in Mister Pip is the power of literature and storytelling to affect lives. To what extent do you agree with this statement? This essay completely agrees with the statement “a key idea in the novel Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones is the power of literature and storytelling to affect lives”. This is aptly shown through the escape it can provide to the villagers during a civil war and as a form of narrative therapy to recover from the trauma of the war as well. In the novel, storytelling affects almost all the characters in a positive way. “Mister Pip’’ chronicles the experiences of Matilda, a young resident of a small village in Bougainville, an island in Papua New Guinea, during Frames Ona’s rebel uprising against the copper mine company, Bougainville Copper Ltd. This results in the mine closing, and a civil war ensues between the rebels and the Papua New Guinea Defence Force in 1990. The central idea that literature and storytelling can positively affect lives is effectively shown, when the readers gain an understanding of how Mr Watt’s narration of “Great Expectations” (G.E.) has a huge impact on village children, especially Matilda, the protagonist. Mr. Watts declares that he wants the novel, by Charles Dickens, as a “place of light” for the children who are trapped in this terrible civil war to escape into. For the children in the civil war, all western aid for which they were dependent on was cut off. They had no medications, fuel, candles, “and soon the littlest kids came...
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...Emmanuel Obeng Professor Rosalie Yezbick LITR220 25 March, 2016 Course Reflection It has been an amazing eight weeks of intense but fun time learning about American Literature. There were some awesome topics, essays and readings that were my favorites. However, there were also some few topics that even though were interesting to read were my least favorite. The body of this essay is going to be talking about my three favorite as well as my three least topic, essays, forums and reading throughout the course. My first is Anti-Slavery and Slave Narratives in week seven forum, some of the challenges Linda Brent faced while she lived under Flint. While reading, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” it actually made me feel very sad for this...
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...Bibliographic Essay on African American History Introduction In the essay “On the Evolution of Scholarship in Afro- American History” the eminent historian John Hope Franklin declared “Every generation has the opportunity to write its own history, and indeed it is obliged to do so.”1 The social and political revolutions of 1960s have made fulfilling such a responsibility less daunting than ever. Invaluable references, including Darlene Clark Hine, ed. Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); Evelyn Brooks Higgingbotham, ed., Harvard Guide to African American History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001); Arvarh E. Strickland and Robert E. Weems, Jr., eds., The African American Experience: An Historiographical and Bibliographical Guide (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001); and Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro- American Slavery (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1988), provide informative narratives along with expansive bibliographies. General texts covering major historical events with attention to chronology include John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans (Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000), considered a classic; along with Joe William Trotter, Jr., The African American 1  Experience (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001); and, Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, The...
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...The accounts of the Civil War are told in numerous ways throughout the times of history from many viewpoints. We see diaries of soldiers, elite white women, and some slaves. However, there are few accounts from the civilian point of view or the comparisons between how average groups in each section felt and acted. Even though civilians were affected by the Civil War the most, their accounts are not put at the forefront of historical documents of this time. Southerners had to go through the crumbling of not only the institution of slavery, but the downfall of their economical and social aspects as well. Northerners had to deal with their society ever changing and the holding to their values. The civilians who lived along the border states were...
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... Student number: 385 367 Date of submission: 7 March 2009 Course Code: DRAA 1003 Lecture : Jordache A. Ellapen Due Date: 23 March 2009 Word count : 452 ( not including references ) Essay Topic: 1. D.W Griffith, who is often referred to as the father of film, was influenced by the works of Edwin S. Porter. Porter’s two film’s Life of and American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903) display some of the early innovations in filmmaking that were instrumental in the development of film language. By examining the films of Porter and Griffith ( Birth of the Nation (1915)) , discuss in detail the manner in which Griffith was influenced by the works of Edwin S. Porter in establishing the basic vocabulary of filmmaking and editing . The film industry in contemporary society has proven itself to be one of the most popular forms of entertainment and information. Films produced these days have made way for a thriving industry. It is important to understand how these films are made and in particular how the cinema culture has evolved. D.W Griffith was a prominent figure in creating films during the early 1900s. His work was based on the basic narrative ideas for film that were formally introduced by Edwin S Porter, another critical figure in cinematic history. This essay will discuss how the works of Porter influenced D.W Griffith in developing the basic vocabulary of filmmaking and editing with reference to the early films of both these filmmakers. During...
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...1. Stereotypes, narratives, ideologies and discourses are devices that, in different ways according to different theorists, fortify media power. Critically analyse how these devices work, according to various theorists, and reflect upon which best explains communicative power. The social construction of reality is mediated through the communicative powers of stereotypes, narratives, ideologies and discourses and the media is extremely powerful in communicating messages with these devices. It will be argued that discourses are the most powerful communicating device used by the media in the postindustrial era today. Furthermore as per Croteau & Hoynes (2014, p. 9), the analysis will focus on recognised mass media that is readily available in print, film, radio, television, sound recordings and the Internet. Poststructuralists within sociology examine the structures of society and human agency. Human agency or action is influenced by sociocultural factors such as ideology that shape human identity and act subconsciously over an individual. Ideology is the system of meaning that helps explain, define and make value judgments about the world (Croteau & Hoynes 2014, p. 152). As we live in an interconnected world there are many ideologies as there are social structures in any given society. Related to this is that dominant ideas are hegemonic. Marx created the superstructure, which is the domain of ideas for example religion, legal structures, family, institutions...
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...West Civ: Modernity Paper 2 Throughout the readings of Lincoln’s Second Inaugural, Flannery O’Connor, “Good Country People”, and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, there are several similarities and differences. The main point of this writing is to highlight the simplicity of the readings. Values of humanity, and morality are some of the key points to focus on throughout the writings and will be discussed accordingly. While there are mostly similarities, there are a few differences as well and they will also be examined. Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address, written in 1865 and delivered on March 4, 1865, was delivered directly during the Civil War. The Civil War of America was started and fought for many different...
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...Similarly, Aritha van Herk identifies “fear, unpredictability, secrecy, [and] loss” (44) as the central features of the novel and its female protagonist. Anil’s Ghost, van Herk argues, presents its readers with a “motiveless world” of terror in which “no identity is reliable, no theory waterproof” (45). Ondaatje’s novel tells the story of Anil Tessera, a Sri Lankan expatriate and forensic anthropologist working for a UN-affiliated human rights organization. Haunted by a strong sense of personal and cultural dislocation, Anil takes up an assignment in Sri Lanka, where she teams up with a local archeologist, Sarath Diyasena, to uncover evidence of the Sri Lankan government’s violations of human rights during the country’s period of acute civil war. Yet, by the end of the novel, Anil has lost the evidence that could have indicted the government and is forced to leave the country, carrying with her a feeling of guilt for her unwitting complicity in Sarath’s death. On one hand, Anil certainly embodies an ethical (albeit rather schematic) critique of the failure of global justice. On the other, her character stages diaspora, in Vijay Mishra terms, as the “normative” and “ exemplary … condition of late modernity” (“Diasporic” 441) — a condition usually associated with the figure of the nomad rather than the diasporic subject — and thus raises questions about the novel’s regulatory politics of diasporic identity. In contrast, Anita Rau Badani’s The Hero’s Walk represents the formation...
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...some common themes that reoccur in many of the stories and poems. Of course slavery was a very common topic but there were others such as inequality between the races and sexes, injustice and resentment, the black identity, and a strong faith and religion. Even though the words can be separated in the end they all come back together. There were many narratives written by fugitive slaves before the Civil War and by former slaves in the postbellum era. These narratives document slave life from the perspective of first-hand experience. The stories they tell are dark and ugly. The authors like Douglas and Jacobs reveal the struggles, sorrows, aspirations, and triumphs of slaves in absorbingly personal story-telling. Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was the first autobiography by a formerly enslaved African American woman. In it she describes her experience of the sexual exploitation that made slavery especially oppressive for black women. She also recounts her life in slavery in the context of family relationships with her escape and her struggle to free her children. Fredrick Douglas who wrote Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas, an American Slave, Written by Himself depicts the grim life of slavery as well. He vividly describes the brutality that slaves endured, the meager rations they are allowed for nourishment, and even the murder of a slave. He also hits on the common practice of slave owners raping the enslaved women. Douglas also writes...
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...used in this catalogue differ greatly from the image above. Homer’s travels to Virginia throughout the war, eventually led to his returns during the 1870s to observe and portray what had happened to the lives of former slaves in the first decade of the Reconstruction. His visual effects in differentiating the Civil War and Reconstruction era presents the shift in Homer’s own approach and his viewers. It is assumed that these current events affected Homer and his art. Nonetheless, Homer provides visual evidence to the social and cultural history that leads to his “non-political” views of the American black citizen. The purpose to this catalogue is to explore the historical, and subjective context of race relations in America through the visual interpretations throughout Homer’s career, and to expand the discussion on the images of blacks painted by Homer. Homer’s visual images of blacks in art fall into three categories: the Civil War, Reconstruction and later years of blacks in the Caribbean. Homer was well known for his variety of art subjects, the most prominent being a reclusive spirit and interest...
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...Was the legislation that gave African Americans equal rights to ‘whites’ the result of famous, glorified leaders such as Martin Luther King and Lyndon Johnson or was it those who worked behind the scenes, the local groups and individuals, who set the stage for these legal amendments to be possible? The Civil Rights Movement was one of the most significant events in the modern history of the United States that has formed the basis of many of its core values and laws today. The Civil Rights Movement unofficially ended with the passing of the long awaited “1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act” which legally saw an end to the racial discrimination faced by African Americans. However the historiography of the Civil Rights Movement has “undergone some serious revision” since 1965 as it ‘gained popular appeal.’ Initially the Civil Rights Movement was “romanticized” and considered to be a “heroic narrative of moral purpose and personal courage by which great men and women inspired ordinary people to rise up and struggle for their rights” such as the famed Martin Luther King, who was painted as the ‘driving force behind the movement’ ,President Lyndon Johnson and Kennedy and organisations such as ‘The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People’ (NAACP) This idea of the federal government, prominent leaders and organisations playing the defining role in the passing of these bills soon became less plausible in the 1970’s and 1980’s as the “second...
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...Alvaro Barsallo Ms. Morrow ENC1102 9/28/2014 A Look at “A Rose for Emily” “A Rose for Emily” is a short story by William Faulkner. It is the story of an old southern woman called Emily who lives only with her servant in an old mansion after her father dies; she never goes out and is rarely seen by the townspeople. Nobody in the town knows that she’s keeping a macabre secret inside her room. I chose this story in particular because I’m a huge fan of The Zombies and music from the sixties in general. In The Zombies’ album Odessey and Oracle, there is a short retelling of the story and that is the only version of the story I have ever heard before reading the actual story in class recently. The story is divided in five parts. In the first part of the story, the narrator recalls the time of Emily’s death and how the whole town attends her funeral in her old dilapidated home. We are told how the previous mayor, a man in his eighties, has retracted Emily’s taxes after her father’s death. When the new younger generation town leaders take over they try to make her pay taxes but she gets her way and successfully gets rid of these officials. In the second part, the narrator describes how thirty years earlier, Emily’s house started to smell horrible. The younger officials sprinkle lime along the foundation to appease the townspeople who are complaining of the odor. The narrator gives us a clue about Emily’s state of mind by telling us the Emily’s great aunt had succumbed to mental...
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