Similarities in The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy
Ernest Hemingway and Alice Walker, although separated by seven decades, show striking similarity in their definitions of love in their novels The Sun Also Rises and Possessing the Secret of Joy. It is a unique similarity of circumstances that links these two novels. Jake Barnes, the protagonist of The Sun Also Rises, is literally and symbolically castrated during his service in the First World War. Tashi, the protagonist of Possessing the Secret of Joy, undergoes an ancient tribal ritual of female circumcision that leaves her incapable of having sex. Through these two characters, Hemingway and Walker proclaim their belief that love can exist outside the parameters of a conventional relationship.
Both Jake and Tashi are wounded by serving their countries--Jake in the war, Tashi in an ancient tribal ritual. In both cases, their sacrifice is expected of them. Jake, after returning from the battlefield, is commended by his officer. It certainly was a "rotten way to be wounded," and Jake's officer says, "You gave more than your life." To his officer, however, if Jake had given more than his life it was given in honor of his country, so any consequences of his wound was a fate he would have to live with. He was supposed to be proud to have given so much for the war effort, but his wound does not make Jake a hero. Instead, he is reduced to something less than a man. His wound becomes a joke instead of a mark of a martyr. Jake thinks, "At one time or another I had probably considered it [his wound] from most of its various angles, including the one that certain injuries or imperfections are a subject of merriment while remaining quite serious for the person possessing them" (20). As the war grows distant, Jake must assimilate to life as a lover, not a soldier. In a time when people try to forget the war, Jake becomes not a hero but the object of a cruel joke.
"You have given more than your life."
-The Sun Also Rises
Tashi is also wounded for her country. Her African tribe, the Olinkans, demands that everyone have their face scared with traditional tribal markings. For women this "initiation" also includes circumcision. Tashi wants to go through with the ritual--just as Jake decides to join the army--so that she can sacrifice for the traditions and culture she believes in.
Health, how it is defined and how it is maintained, is a reflection of the dominant ideology in a certain society. The medical system of Western countries, including Australia, is based on the biomedical model of health or biomedicine. According to Lord Nigel Crisp, who is a global health reform advocate, former Chief Executive of the National Health Service (NHS) in United Kingdom (UK) and previous Permanent Secretary of the UK Department of Health, Western scientific medicine and the health systems based on them have exhibited spectacular success in improving health over the last century and it has come to dominate medical thinking, habits and institutions globally. It also served as the guide for health regulating bodies including the World Health Organization, health care professional associations and pharmaceutical companies. He argued, however, that presently Western scientific medicine is no longer capable of solely managing the health demands of peoples in both the industrialised and developing countries. There is a need to adapt and absorb new ideas to be able to meet the demands of the twenty first century(Marble, 2010). In order to get a better understanding of the current health system in Western societies this paper attempts to take a closer look at the development of scientific medicine as the foundation of modern medical practice. In addition to the overview of biomedicine, a few of the challenges to its discourse will also be presented throughout the discussion.
Stereotypically, the “American Dream” is the idealistic family life in America: husband, wife, children, two-story house, etc. Even more than that, this dream is a dream of equal statuses and no gender or race prevails over another. All My Sons, A Raisin in the Sun, and The Joy Luck Club all deal with the idea of the “American Dream” in a different way. In A Raisin in the Sun and The Joy Luck Club, you can see the yearn for this American lifestyle in the racial issues; while in All My Sons it ties into the lifestyle in a more family oriented way (Hansberry) (Tan) (Miller).
Owning a location eliminates risk for the company which is ideal when trying to expand the brand. Although a third party owns the location there is still some level of control by the company which is evident when Schlosser states. “the McDonald’s business model: the emphasis on simplicity and uniformity, the ability to replicate the same retail environment at many locations” (97). The company wants to have control over how their brand is being portrayed in different locations and the best way to control that is by making a uniform look. The goal of McDonalds is to maximize revenue and they do this by having control over locations and finding ways to cut back. For example, some McDonalds locations do not require cashiers anymore because a self-service ordering system is in place. A self-service ordering system allows the customer to make their own order, customize it, and pay for it all on one machine. As a result, there are no cashiers to train. As more technology comes out it is evident that they can replace employees and soon McDonalds can be run by robots and
From the story “In the Field” Tim O’Brien talks about death of a fellow soldier Kiowa, something so simple as turning on a light can cost one's life. This is pretty ironic since light is usually associated with life, happiness and love. Only the irony is a flick of a switch and a man is dead. The soldier set up camp in the field that was far from good, it was a flooded area covered in water, mud and as they put it crap. This was not easy to begin with, Tim O’Brien puts it great himself “War is hell, but that is not the half of it, because war is also mystery and terror and adventure and courage..war is nasty; war is fun. War is thrilling..war makes you a man; war makes you dead.” This relates to Kiowa since he is a man who literally died in
According to John Davidson's essay Menace to Society, "three-quarters of Americans surveyed [are] convinced that movies, television and music spur young people to violence." While public opinion is strong, the results of research are divided on the effects of media violence on the youth in this country. Davidson wrote that most experts agree that some correlation between media violence and actual violent acts exists, yet the results are contradictory and researchers quibble about how the effects are to be measured (271). Moreover, Davidson is not convinced that the media is the sole problem of violence, or even a primary problem. He points out that other factors, such as "poverty, the easy accessibility of guns, domestic abuse, [and] social instability" may have a greater impact on a child becoming violent than the influence of the media (277). Even though other forces may be stronger, media violence does have some adverse effects on the members of society. If senseless violence on television and in movies had no effect, it would not be such a hotly debated topic. What type of effects and whom they affect are the most argued aspects of the discussion.
Well back in 1953, when Fahrenheit 451 was published, Bradbury forewarned us of such future if we were to mess everything up so badly, yet so gracefully that, in the words of the adage, Murphy’s law, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Bradbury knew this so well that he predicted that if we, as a collective society, allowed things to go wrong, we will bring to life the mechanical hounds of the Fahrenheit world with today’s equivalent of drones, bring about nuclear war through a hot-headed leader, and our own virtual“families” that we’ve created to fill the missing sense of belonging that can’t be found in the real world,
The events that take place in war are gruesome and full of brutality. Tim, a young boy, witnessed the killing of a slave Ned while vomiting all over himself. “Ned’s head jumped off his body and popped into the air(Collier and Collier 145).” Ned was beheaded in the British raid in Tim’s hometown. In another instance, Mr, Meeker, Tim’s father, tells his son ,Sam, about the brutality of war.. “Have you ever seen a
One paramount debate that truly highlights the two sides of this controversy occurred in July of 1997. As George Gerbner, the former dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Communications, argued that, “Formula-driven media violence is not an expression of crime statistics, popularity, or freedom. It is de facto censorship driven by global marketing, imposed on creative people, foisted on the children of the world” (“Is Media” 1). Critic Todd Gitlin responded to that argument by stating, “Television violence is mainly redundant, stupid, and ugly,” it does not cause violence in its viewers, and the biggest problem is that the profiteers of television have to produce this “formulaic stuff” (1). Personally, I agree with George Gerbner’s view on this subject. In my opinion, the overabundance of violence in American media has caused adverse effe...
The main elements of the medical model of health are the search for objective, discernable signs of disease, its diagnosis and treatment (Biswas, 1993). Therefore, by adhering to this reductionist view, the human body is seen as a biochemical machine (Turner, 1995) and health merely as an absence of disease, a commodity to be bought and sold. The rise of hospitals with their goal of curing and controlling disease has led to the marginalisation of lay medicine, and a focus upon the individual rather than society as a cause of ill health. Health education and promotion with their focus upon 'victim blaming' and individualism have extended the remit of the medical profession from the hospital into the community. With medical imperialism the power of medicina has grown and medicine has all but replaced religion as an institution of social control. Illich (1976, p53) describes medicine as a: 'moral enterprise.....[which] gives content to good and evil..... like law and religion [it] defines what is normal, proper or desirable'.
Many psychologists have studied the effect of the media on an individual’s behavior and beliefs about the world. There have been over 1000 studies which confirm the link that violence portrayed through the media can influence the level of aggression in the behavioral patterns of children and adults (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2001). The observed effects include, increased aggressiveness and anti-social behavior towards others, an increased fear of becoming a victim or target of aggressive behavior, becoming less sensitive to violence and victims of violent acts, and concurrently desiring to watch more violence on television and in real-life (A.A.P. 2001). According to John Murray of Kansas State University, there are three main avenues of effects: direct effects, desensitization, and the Mean World Syndrome (Murray, 1995, p. 10). The direct effects of observing violence on television include an increase in an individual’s level of aggressive behavior, and a tendency to develop favorable attitudes and values about using violence to solve conflicts and to get one’s way. As a result of exposure to violence in the media, the audience may become desensitized to violence, pain, and suffering both on television and in the world. The individual may also come to tolerate higher levels of aggression in society, in personal behavior, or in interpersonal interactions. The third effect is known as the Mean World Syndrome, which theorizes that as a result of the amount of violence seen on television and also the context and social perspective portrayed through the media, certain individuals develop a belief that the world is a bad and dangerous place, and begin to fear violence and victimization in real life (A.A.P. 2001).
According to Foucault and Illich (in Van Krieken et al. 2006: 351-352), doctors and the medical profession have traditionally been empowered by their knowledge as the authority that society defers to with regards to the definition of disease and health. With improvements in medical technology as well as the advent of the hospital, an evolution...
Television violence, and media violence in general, has been a controversial topic for several years. The argument is whether young children are brainwashed into committing violent real-world crimes because of violent and pugnacious behavior exposed in mass media. In his article “No Real Evidence for TV Violence Causing Real Violence”, Jonathan Freedman, a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and author of “Media Violence and Its Effect on Aggression: Assessing the Scientific Evidence”, discusses how television violence, claimed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), does not cause real-world aggression among adolescents. The FCC determined to restrict violent television programming to late night hours only because their “scientific research” proves of increasing aggression among young viewers (Freedman Par. 2). Freedman goes on to explain that the FCC has no substantial scientific evidence stating that there is a correlation between fictional violence and real-world aggression among young audiences. He has completed research in 1984 and 2002 on the relationship between media violence to actual acts of violence on the street. Because he has completed research projects related to this topic, Freedman’s statistical evidence shows that there is a reduction in youth violence and it essentially does not cause real-world crimes (Freedman Par. 1). The FCC continues to claim that exposure to media violence does in fact increase aggression, and yet their readers continue to believe their fabrications. Freedman argues that people who research media violence tend to disregard and omit the opposing facts. No one type of violence is more effective on aggression than another type. There is no evidence showi...
The media is everywhere and takes up a great deal of people’s everyday lives. People depend on the media to provide them with information that would otherwise be hard to get. The people of society also use the media to communicate with friends, family, and people from all around the world. Also, the media serves as a means for entertainment. Businesses use the media as a way to advertise their products. The media affects society in many different ways; such as, businesses use the media to promote their products, the media effects communication, and the media affects body image and behavior of people in society.
Media technologies are becoming an important aspect of today’s society. Each and every day, people interact with media of many different forms. Media is commonly defined as being a channel of communication. Radio, newspapers, and television are all examples of media. It is impossible to assume that media is made up of completely unbiased information and that the media companies do not impose their own control upon the information being supplied to media users. Since many people use media very frequently, it is obvious to assume that it has affects on people. According to the text book Media Now, "media effects are changes in knowledge, attitude, or behavior that result from exposure to the mass media," (386). This leaves us with many unanswered questions about media and its influences. This paper will look at how the effects of media are determined and explore the main affects on today’s society - violence, prejudice, and sexual behavior.
The influence of mass media has changed the behavior of sections of society. Brown (2002) assert that the increase use of media has increasingly led youths to adopt overtly sexual behaviour. He writes;