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Psychological effects of art
How art therapy affects people emotionally essay
Psychological effects of art
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Paint It Black
By Janet Fitch
First came White Oleander, Janet Fitch's earliest successful novel, and then came Paint It Black, a tale no less mesmerizing. The story is set in the 80's Punk scene in LA and follows a young girl named Josie Tyrell as she copes with the suicide of the only person that she ever truly loved. Josie was just white trash before Michael Faraday entered her life. He read her poetry, taught her how to dream, and filled her with a light that she never knew existed, but then it was gone, and she was left in the dark, alone.
Josie try's to cope with the pain through drugs and alcohol, she try's burying herself in her work and running from the pain, but it just leads to a series of dead ends. She misses Michael and hates him for leaving her. Soon she finds their relationship was riddled with lies, she learned Michael was not only using paint to create scenes, but he also illustrated a very detailed life for himself. He was not exactly who he made himself out to be, but he was still the boy who stole her heart.
Throughout the book Josie encounters Meredith Loewy, Michael's mom. Meredith despised Josie when Michael was alive, and not much changed afterwards. Meredith is hollow inside, and Josie can see that, but for some reason she is drawn to the powerful, rich pianist. She respects her, fears her, and pity's her. Josie is all Meredith has left, and like it or not, Meredith Loewy is all that is left of Michael. Josie struggles in an inner conflict, should she befriend this beautiful older woman that so reminds her of Michael, or should she stay away from the void of Meredith Loewy, where lovers are lost?
The passage I chose is in the very beginning. Josie has just gotten a call from the LA police department. They ask her to come down to the morgue to identify a body of a boy registered as Oscar Wilde. Josie had thought Michael was at his mother's house, painting. She knew he needed his space when he painted and hadn't called for a while. Little did she know, Michael was sitting in trashy motel room in Twentynine Palms preparing to put a bullet through his brain.
This week I read the short article on Alan Locke’s, “Enter the New Negro”. This article is discussing the Negro problem in depth. “By shedding the chrysalis of the Negro problem, we are achieving something like spiritual emancipation”. Locke believes that if we get rid of whatever is holding us back we would gain something renewing and beautiful.
Through the protagonist, Josie the audiences learn that being an illegitimate and meeting one’s parent is hard to tackle but that feeling will eventually change once the individual has known their parent. “How dare you think that I want to be in your life! I don’t want you anywhere near us, especially my mother.” is the dialogue that Josie has told Michael when they had their first conversation.
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, is one of the most famous historical fiction books ever written. This 352 paged book has inspired many teens to acknowledge the Genocide of Baltic people. Ruta Sepetys was inspired to write a fiction book instead of a non-fiction book based on the stories she heard from survivors of the genocide during a visit to her relatives in Lithuania. She interviewed dozens of people during her stay. Between Shades of Gray was her first novel that she had written. This book was interpreted well enough by the readers to become a New York Times Bestseller.
reacts to the crosser. At the beginning of the poem, the speaker’s first impression of the swamp
...approval by their family and the people around are considered as the most common trend between teenagers around the world and are used throughout the novel. Josephine was first introduced to the reading knowing that she was unsure of her identity and how she was searching for acceptance from her grandmother due to her illegitimacy. Marchetta created Josephine’s characteristic as one that the readers can truly understand and allow them to be able to feel a connection and a relation between the characters in the novel and themselves; it can make them realize that this is a social issues that each generation of teenagers face on a daily basis. The characters in the novel accompanied by the themes such as stereotypes and social statuses supported the author’s idea of creating a novel in which comment on the social issues and reflect reality within the novel.
"My Children are black. They don't look like your children. They know that they are black, and we want it recognized. It's a positive difference, an interesting difference, and a comfortable natural difference. At least it could be so, if you teachers learned to value difference more. What you value, you talk about.'" p.12
Michael MacDonald’S All Souls is a heart wrenching insider account of growing up in Old Country housing projects located in the south of Boston, also known as Southie to the locals. The memoir takes the reader deep inside the world of Southie through the eyes of MacDonald. MacDonald was one of 11 children to grow up and deal with the many tribulations of Southie, Boston. Southie is characterized by high levels of crime, racism, and violence; all things that fall under the category of social problem. Social problems can be defined as “societal induced conditions that harms any segment of the population. Social problems are also related to acts and conditions that violate the norms and values found in society” (Long). The social problems that are present in Southie are the very reasons why the living conditions are so bad as well as why Southie is considered one of the poorest towns in Boston. Macdonald’s along with his family have to overcome the presence of crime, racism, and violence in order to survive in the town they consider the best place in the world.
As Elie Wiesel once stated, “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” (“Elie Wiesel Quote”). Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow, which discusses criminal justice and its role in mass incarceration, promotes a similar idea regarding silence when America’s racial caste system needs to be ended; however, Alexander promotes times when silence would actually be better for “the tormented.” The role of silence and lack of silence in the criminal justice system both contribute to wrongly accused individuals and growing populations behind bars.
Primary Colors, by Joe Klein, is an entertaining, informing, and controversial novel. Filled with both humor and wit, this book provides a drama filled fictional story, in which Joe Klein purports to describe characters and events that resemble real-life political figures. Joe Klein is an American Journalist and columnist. He is also the political columnist for TIME Magazine. When Klein published his book, Primary Colors, in 1996, he left the author as anonymous and then later published the book under his name. His book Primary Colors is said to be,” A brilliant and penetrating look behind the scenes of modern American politics, Primary Colors is a funny, wise, and dramatic story with characters and events that resemble some familiar, real-life figures.” (From the Hardcover edition.) This book follows the presidential campaign of a governor of a small Southern state, Jack Stanton. The book’s narrator is a congressional worker, Henry Burton, who joined the presidential campaign. The book doesn’t exactly state it, but you can infer that the events are based on Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. This book is sure to keep your attention, and make you want to read more.
Michael soon decides that if he can trust Joe enough to keep in silence, he may be able to out wit the police. When Michael makes his decision, he never considers the ramifications that will come of it. For example, Michael never even considers the long agonizing nights he will stay awake or the ling pain filled days he will go through thinking of Jenna Ward and her mother suffering day after day. On the contrary, Michael thinks he will be able to just move on and forget about it.
“A tan to die for” written by Claire Oliver is a letter to the editor that shows that the use of solariums can greatly increase the potential for life-threatening melanoma. Claire Oliver’s tone shows a composed, collected and complacent frame of mind at her imminent death, stating that “[she is] at peace”. Her composed tone when discussing the certainty of her impending death appeals to a sense of rationality, and writes optimistically about the remainder of her life. This optimism, and personal responsibility, comes from her wish of helping those who do not know of the health risks involved in the beauty young teens crave to acquire.
Sidewalk is a book written by Mitchell Duneier, an American sociology professor at Princeton University, in 1999; where the book has gained a lot of favorable reviews, leading its winning the Los Angeles Times Book prize and C. Wright Mills Award. Similarly, the book had become a classic in urban studies, especially due to the interesting methodology, which was used by Duneier while he was conducting his research. The book is based on observations, participant observation and interviews, which gave the author the ability to live and interact with the book and magazine vendors on daily bases. Although, this gave him an insight into the life of the sidewalk, many methodological issues have concerned scholars and students of sociology since the day this book was published. Duneier had admitted during the book that he couldn’t be completely subjective while conducting his research and writing his book due to his involvement and personal relationship with people who work and live at the sidewalk, which raise the question, whether the research is still relevant if the researcher is only giving us an objective outcome?
After a basketball game, four kids, Andrew Jackson, Tyrone Mills, Robert Washington and B.J. Carson, celebrate a win by going out drinking and driving. Andrew lost control of his car and crashed into a retaining wall on I-75. Andy, Tyrone, and B.J. escaped from the four-door Chevy right after the accident. Teen basketball star and Hazelwood high team captain was sitting in the passenger's side with his feet on the dashboard. When the crash happened, his feet went through the windshield and he was unable to escape. The gas tank then exploded and burned Robbie to death while the three unharmed kids tried to save him.
Josie's father has had very little immediate impact on her life thus far. When her father did arrive in back in Sydney Josie is naturally angry at him. This is a totally acceptable form of behaviour considering the circumstance, but her anger not only stems from her own personal experience. Josie had to grow up knowing that her father had abandoed her and her mother, pushing her Christina into being a single parent bringing up her child alone.
The novel, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other (2011) written by Sherry Turkle, presents many controversial views, and demonstrating numerous examples of how technology is replacing complex pieces and relationships in our life. The book is slightly divided into two parts with the first focused on social robots and their relationships with people. The second half is much different, focusing on the online world and it’s presence in society. Overall, Turkle makes many personally agreeable and disagreeable points in the book that bring it together as a whole.