Performances of folksongs ranging from the elites to the peasants give insight into individuals’ lives and experiences. In both Michael Nylan’s chapter on the Odes and in Chen Kaige’s 1984 film, Yellow Earth, the importance of the rhetoric of folksongs is emphasized as a body of knowledge and teachings that represents the culture’s accepted norms, ranging from themes of knowledge, pleasure, and human integration. The combination of lyrics with music was believed to be a “spontaneous expression of public sentiment” used by rulers to gauge the “welfare of the common people” (Nylan 79). Therefore, the significance of the Odes collection as an accurate reflection of historical events and emotions parallels with the role of folksongs used to convey the impoverished sentiments of the villagers of a feudal Shanbei in Yellow Earth. While Yellow Earth masks the roles of folksongs under the guise of traumatic experiences, these folksongs are used to promote individual and social empowerment, working in tandem with the functions of the more sophisticated folksongs in the Odes.
Yellow Earth opens with a scene of the young Cuiqiao witnessing the ultimate paralysis of a woman’s autonomy, an arranged marriage. Living in a feudal and patriarchal society in which arranged marriages are commonplace, Cuiqiao’s position as a girl is automatically disempowering. As the film elaborates this celebratory, feasting occasion, there is a man who sings about both the feast and the marriage. As Michael Nylan states, “The Odes anthology itself repeatedly draws our attention to the human desire for social engagement and the sense of mutual well-being engendered when that engagement is adept and loving” (100). Therefore, the performance of this particular folks...
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...ly convey the shared experiences of unhappiness and helplessness. Cuiqiao’s performances of folksongs are often paralleled with visuals of the desolation of the land or the ambiguity of her singing. Much like the function of the Odes as a “didactic instrument,” while Cuiqiao is never depicted actually singing, the ambiguity creates a more relatable folksong that can move the masses and encourage a virtuous change (Nylan 75). The function of both the Odes and Cuiqiao’s folksongs work as expressions of intense emotions, which are interpreted in order to understand “human capacities and aspirations and how to motivate them” (Nylan 75). While the workings of the feudal system eventually prove too intolerable, the ending of Cuiqiao’s story is her final act of autonomy in search of personal liberation, empowered by the performance and promises of the Communist’s folksong.
The book ends in relative confusion: a phone rings repeatedly with no answer and Djamilaa wistfully dreams of a potentially shared blocked opera (208). Despite lacking a concrete conclusion, by raising and resolving numerous contradictions, the novel offers a complex and layered understanding of how meaning is conveyed through and in art. Mackey shows through words that music may be both a means and an end. Ultimately, Bedouin Hornbook pays homage to the wandering man and his wandering sport, improvisation.
“ Her voice was a warm, luminous, timeless melody.” The girl being mentioned in this metaphor is a ballerina that specializes in ballet and dance. However, she cannot perform to her best potential because of the handicaps weighing her down. She possesses a sweet and “melodious” which shows she is unique and beautiful individual. Without these special features and traits, she becomes equal to everyone else but at the cost of her passions and individuality. Once Harrison Bergeron rips off her handicaps, she becomes free of the handicaps that restrict her from her happiness and personal lifestyle. This reveals that rebellion against the unfair handicaps creates an environment welcome to all sorts of special personalities and features that divide everyone into their own personal image. The ballerina’s voice is described a great feature to show that the handicaps can hide specialities that could potentially make someone superior to the other. This reveals the power the government has on the people on this society and how it affects everyone extremely negatively. Only after rebellion against the powerfully restricting handicaps that one can experience freedom and happiness.
Throughout history, gypsy culture has developed a mysticism about it that has been pondered by many artists—both in the musical sense and through other creative expressions. George Bizet, a famed French Romantic Era composer, artfully presents the tragic story of Carmen, based on Prosper Mérimée’s famed novella, using unique and captivating expressions in his music to explore the gypsy realm. In the opera, Carmen, the heroine, is a young gypsy woman from Seville, Spain who has a wild and inconsistent love life and becomes involved with a soldier named Don José. Don José, captivated by Carmen’s seductive prowess, soon becomes dependent on Carmen’s love for him, and when she moves on, it drives him into a passionate anger, which ultimately leads to his murder of her. In this particular aria, “En vain pour éviter”, Carmen discovers that both her fate and Don José’s are sealed with death, and as she tries to avoid it, she realizes it is inevitable. George Bizet mimics Carmen’s attempted elusion of fate through the use of secondary chords, relative keys, and extensions of the dominant function, as to avoid tonic, which represents her death. In addition, Bizet manages to establish a sense of ambiguity to Carmen’s view of her fate through unusual progressions and breaking of sequences. (Encyclopaedia Britannica)
Words are often used as effective weapons in written and verbal war. Though seemingly non-violent, these conflicts contain elements of violence, and can thus prove highly painful. In his article “Daily Life in Black Africa: Elements for a Critique,” author Paulin Houtondji criticizes superficial problems in daily life in Africa, while hinting at the issues of the bigger picture. Similar to this approach, E.T. Mensah uses music to soften the blow of his loaded words. Other pop musicians, such as Fela Kuti, choose not to be sensitive to their audiences, and instead assault them with politically charged lyrics, calling them to action and demanding social change. Both approaches and styles are effective, but an audience’s receptiveness and perception may be the most important determining factors of an artist’s success in issuing a call for change.
Music is an art and a wonderful gift to human race. It soothes, stimulates and makes us feel happy. It affects our moods in many different ways from lullaby to war cry for changes in the society. Music is actually distinct to different people. Above all, it has a transformational importance that is captured in its art and nature. Music draws our emotions and it has an impact of bridging different cultures across the continents. Slave songs were very vital channels through which all kind of information was conveyed both positive and negative.
History tells us that music not only helped shape movements, but it further played a major role in how we developed as a civilized society. From primitive sounds and chants, that further helped mankind communicate linguistically, we can assume music developed, rather unintentionally, and gradually with us. To honor my brief brush with Music Appreciation, this research paper will delve into how music has affected and developed with mankind, how humanity has affect it, how it influences American culture, and justifies the notion of how it reflects society’s redeemable wish to sail into further enlightenment.
The Yellow Wallpaper was written as a realism story. It showed how woman felt they had the same opportunities as men in their personal choices. In this story, the woman expressed her worries to her husband who through good intentions, required that his wife stay in bed 24/7, and not do any of the things she would normally do. In effect his wife became worse until she reached the limit. The behavior of the husband at this time was completely normal. Men were the higher power over women and women, like the one in this story, felt that they couldn?t stand count for themselves.
Vintage short stories are meant to entertain their readers. However, many passive readers miss the true entertainment that lies within the story in the hidden context. Most short stories have, embedded in the writing, a lesson or theme attached to them. In the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper,” Gilman demonstrates a woman who has suffered from repression and longs for the freedom from her controlling husband. Gender conflicts play a major role throughout this story. The author portrays these kinds of conflicts through the three main characters, John, Jennie and the narrator. The theme of this story is a woman's fall into insanity resulting from isolation from treatment of post-partum depression. Gilman is also telling the story of how women were thought of as prisoners by the demands of the society throughout that time period. She also expresses the punishments these women had when they tried to break free. As a reader, we see how much control John had over her and how it ended up affecting her individuality.
In this essay I will examine whether modern dance, although influenced and evolved from the political and social situations of the time, is only necessary to reflect only political messages. Every choreographer, like every artist, is influenced by the stimuli of his everyday life and expresses, through his works, his own concerns. He has the need to create, and to share with the audience, any event that is moving him, troubles him and makes him angry. His work is to be able to awaken the viewer, to attract his interest and to trouble him for the event to which he refers. This message does not need to be always only political / social, but must reflect aspects of human life in a real and moral way.
excellent moral values portrayed in them. The author uses the chorus as a way to illustrate the reaction that the public
Music is not a new happening in the world, but has a rather deep history. Lovers of music, including composers, singers, and listeners always have various reasons as to why they are attracted to music. However, the music industry has always attracted critics with some claiming that music classes are a waste of time and that the major aim of music is to enhance life enjoyment. In this essay, I will argue that in real sense, music can be much more than just sweet melodies and dances can be more than just good moves; music and dances play vital roles in the social, cultural, and political lives of people or communities.
... serious and controlled herself, music allows her forget about her principles and join to her sisters while they are dancing. “a pattern of action that is out of character and at the same time ominous of some deep and true emotion” Her relationship with it private and unique, as only music can make her different from her usual appearance.
ABSTRACT: Humanity requires for its satisfaction Beauty and Good, that is, love, wisdom, and courage. Put differently, the necessity of order, equilibrium, and harmony. These values ground one of the most elevated planes of the spiritual life: music. Its moral force in the education of the mind, soul, and behavior of the human person has been emphasized by the ancient Greek philosophers. This important message exists as a pattern crossing the centuries. I will try to reveal the unity ¡¥ethics¡¦/ethike - ¡¥music¡¦/melos by using the semiotic organon.
The yellow wallpaper is about a couple who has an unequal relationship. The husband is a doctor, and the wife is suffering from severe mental illness. The husband rents out a mansion in the countryside symbolizing as an asylum. She was kept in the attic of the mansion in a strange room cover in yellow wallpaper. There are four windows facing toward every direction, but all four windows are barred. The wife grows more insane looking at the wallpaper. The wallpaper has a strange, formless pattern, and Gilman (1892) describes it as “revolting” and behind the pattern of the wallpaper she thinks that she see women who are trying to escape. On the last day at the mansion, the wife locks the door and refuses to leave disobeying her husband. When the
In this essay I will show how the Song of Songs implies the philosophical ideas that the definition of beauty is not dependent upon society’s prejudice or taste; that it is most precious when it is protected and guarded; and that with edenic love comes maximal blessing. The book exists as an ancient poem of inspired literature, where the author paints different interactions between two lovers: a Shulamite woman, and a shepherd who is known as “the beloved” (2:3).