Having just experienced the sinking of his family’s ship, and being put onto a life boat with only a hyena, Pi felt completely lost and alone. When he sees Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger from his family’s zoo, it is a familiar face to him. His initial reaction is to save the life of his familiar friend so that he may have a companion, and a protector aboard the lifeboat. Suddenly Pi realizes just what he is doing. He is saving the life of Richard Parker, by welcoming him, a 450 pound Bengal tiger, onto the small lifeboat. He experiences a change of heart when helping the tiger onto the boat. Pi realizes that he is now posing a threat on his own life. With Richard Parker on the boat, Pi is faced with not only the fight to survive stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but the fight to survive living with a meat eating tiger. The change of heart that Pi experiences might possibly mean that he is an impulsive thinker. It may mean that he often does something on impulse without thinking it through, and then later regrets his actions. How does Pi maintain his religious beliefs while on the boat? Pi maintains his religious beliefs while on the life boat through his daily prayers. He takes time aside each day to say the prayers that he always would say. In one instance, he turns where he believes Mecca is located, and prays his traditional prayers towards Mecca. Pi also often states that he will include specific animals in his prayers, such as the zebra aboard his lifeboat, and the first fish that he ever killed. With Pi keeping his ritual prayers going, it helped him to survive.
People often think that a disability means that the person is cognitively incapable in addition to the obvious, or not so obvious, truth. I firmly believe that people should be labeled by their abilities rather than their disabilities. This is why I love the idea that the Deaf community defines itself as culturally capital-D Deaf rather than lower-case-d deaf, which is the condition of being unable to hear. When Drolsbaugh received strong reactions from using the word Deaf, it was because those individuals were unsure of what to do because of his deafness. I wonder what the world, or at least America, would be like if everyone understood this concept; more so, I wonder what it would be like if sign language was commonly taught in elementary schools in the hearing
In Ben Jarashow’s Journey Into the Deaf World, he explained Deaf culture and how it feels to be deaf within the world of those who hear. People who are born deaf have a loss of what is commonly viewed as the most important sense, hearing. This leaves them with four senses instead of five; most important sense now being sight followed by touch. In return, this means that a language must be developed that is based heavily on sight. In the United States, it was not until 1960 that American Sign Language (ASL) was recognized as its own language.
The definition of story is “an account of imaginary or real people and events told for entertainment,” and both of these novels take this term to heart. Using their stories to hide their pain and emotions, it is easier to come up with a majestic tale then to tell the cold hard truth. In Life of Pi the author says, “That’s what fiction is about, isn't it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence,” (vi) and that is something both Edward Bloom and Pi Patel doesn’t. Despite Life of Pi and Big Fish’s obvious differences, they have one thing in common they both revolve around the topic of story telling. The novels are about struggling to come to terms with reality and being stuck
In the book, Hughes describes an encounter he has with a poet who wishes to separate himself from Blackness – to not be considered a “Negro poet.” Hughes cites this desire to dissociate from Blackness as something which has been engrained into the poet by his family: his parents would link bad behavior to “niggers,” while encouraging him to act like a white man to find success. He implies that this active separation from Blackness was a commonplace thing among middle to upper-class Black families, and cited it as a “mountain standing in the way” of true artistic and intellectual freedom for Black people. To conquer this “mountain,” Hughes argues that Black artists must embrace race within their art, not only because it represents a new standard in artistic freedom for Black people, but also because it offers a real Black perspective on the “revolt against weariness in a white
The deaf community does not see their hearing impairment as a disability but as a culture which includes a history of discrimination, racial prejudice, and segregation. According to PBS home video “Through Deaf Eyes,” there are thirty-five million Americans that are hard of hearing (Hott, Garey & et al., 2007) . Out of the thirty-five million an estimated 300,000 people are completely deaf. There are over ninety percent of deaf people who have hearing parents. Also, most deaf parents have hearing children. With this being the exemplification, deaf people communicate on a more intimate and significant level with hearing people all their lives. “Deaf people can be found in every ethnic group, every region, and every economic class.” The deaf culture and hard of hearing have plenty of arguments and divisions with living in a hearing world without sound however, that absence will be a starting point of an identity within their culture as well as the hearing culture.
...rker, the tiger. But Miss Brill just walks away, goes home, and gives up. She is much more simpleminded than Pi. A stranger upsets her happy fantasy while Pi has had his family killed and is still living through the traumatic life experience of trying to survive the ocean. “It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion (123).” Pi also had to enjoy the company of a hungry, scaverous hyena. It ate away the zebra and killed the orangutan. But he did not give up. He keeps living his life. Finally, he gets a break when Richard Parker killed the cruel hyena. “Richard Parker’s jaws closed on the side of the hyena’s neck [...]. Its eyes went dull (150-151).”
In the following chapters, there is an extensive amount of knowledge to learn about how Deaf culture is involved in our modern world. The pages assigned give us an outlook of how Deaf people are treated in our daily life, and how we should learn from it. Its gives a clear line between what are myths and what are facts, to those who are curious about the Deaf community or have specific questions. This book has definitely taught me new things that I could put to good use in the near future. In specific chapters, my mind really opened up to new ideas and made me think hard about questions, like “why don’t some Deaf people trust hearing people,” or “do we need another ‘Deaf president now’ revolution?” I realized many new things in the course of reading this book, and have recommended this to my family.
I briefly interviewed a male in his late teens, asking if he knew who Nyle DiMarco is. His response was, “I heard of him, but I do not exactly know who he is or what he does for a living.” I responded that Nyle DiMarco is a model, actor, and activist, who won first place in Dancing with the Stars and America’s Next Top Model. He started his own foundation, called LEAD-K, preparing children who are deaf for kindergarten through language acquisition. I then asked him, how do you feel knowing a deaf man was able to become a model, actor, and activist. To which he said, “Being deaf should not affect anyone in any way because they are capable of doing anything, except for hearing” (Anonymous, personal communication, November 8, 2017). This should also be seen positively because he is a major influence in the deaf community as
Deaf Gain is a term used to reevaluate the term “Deaf.” This refers to the diversity of Deaf people as a community and their ability to contribute substantially to humanity (Reframing). Deaf gain is centered around three concepts. These are the ideas of normalcy, human diversity, and disability. These three are extremely controversial topics. What is needed to consider someone “normal” or “disabled”? For starters, normalcy is the condition of being normal (Normalcy). However, what is considered normal today, may not have been considered normal a decade ago. So, how do we decide this? Also, the term disability refers to anything that puts one at a disadvantage (Disability). However, lack of education could put a person at a disadvantage but is not considered a disability? Therefore, what is it about Deafness that is considered not normal, or what about this puts the individual at a disadvantage?
I had the honor of begin taught American sign language by a deaf educator, Ms. Parmley, while I was in high school. She had introduced me to deaf culture and taught me there is more to sign language than making hand gestures, the three dimensional language we know today is built on hand gestures, eye contact, facial expression, and body language. Because Ms. Parmley taught me sign language, I have been given the advantage of knowing a second language as well as developing an awareness of cultural and linguistic diversity. Deaf education not only serves as an advantage for deaf students, but also allows hearing students to understand and accept the cultural differences between the hearing world and deaf world. Being a deaf educator would allow me to pass down these opportunities to hearing and deaf students alike, while further allowing deaf culture to merge into today 's society.
Sign language is essential for the deaf. Without it, many would not understand what the world around them was doing. In the Alabama Court of Appeals in Terry v. state the following quote was noted, "In the absence of an interpreter, it would be a physical impossibility for the accused, a deaf (defendant) to know or understand the nature and cause of the accusation against him and... He could only stand by helplessly... Without knowing or understand[ing], and all this in the teeth of the mandatory constitutional rights which apply. More confrontation would be useless."(Legal Rights) Interpreting is used by most of the nearly 70 million deaf people in the world.(WFD) in the quote, they state that without
The cognitive process of creativity has become nearly an essential skill in everyone’s life within last decade. We may argue whether the creative thinking has been in the center of development throughout history but for some reason, our society publicly craves for it more than ever before. Ken Robinson’s TED Talk “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” (Robinson, 2006) has more than 13 million viewers. Tony Blair claimed in 1999 that “the 21st Century will be dominated by the exploitation of creative minds”(Fletcher, 1999). There are many players on the field of creativity, starting with its individual advocates, such as “creativity experts”, companies who stand upon ideas, universities, especially graduate business schools, who have started to “teach” creativity and governments who have come up with escalating amount of initiatives to support this cause. In this paper, the question, why has creativity become in the center of the economic debate recently, will be seek for answer. As it has been a global process, I will focus on the European case and try to frame the developments on that conti-nent.
The creative ability of the human being is not only linked to their ability to reason and intelligence practice, but it is fed and driven by feelings.
One excerpt mentioned that the idea that Deaf people are left with the burden of fitting into a hearing world was a product of “laziness” on the part of the Hearing. Instead of making adjustments to accommodate the Deaf, Deaf people are doing all of the work to accommodate the Hearing. Notwithstanding the major alterations that include learning to speak and wearing hearing aids, hearing people merely have to learn sign language. I’ve witnessed this in my own home. When my brother stopped speaking, it wasn’t ever a concern for the rest of the family to adjust to him, we continued on as if nothing changed. It’s true, Deaf children practically have no say in how they would rather communicate, it is left up to the parent and in most cases, Hearing parents. I’m just glad that I have an opportunity do the work to learn ASL and make strides in breaking down barriers that have hindered communication between the Hearing and the
When Pi is first thrown on the boat, he is trapped with a hyena, zebra, tiger, and an orangutan; after awhile, they start to get hungry. In The Life of Pi, Piscine Patel states “It is when the moon rises that the hyena’s day starts, and it proves to be a devastating hunter” (Yann Martel 116). Being trapped on a boat with a rabid hyena and trying to stay alive is no easy task, but Pi manages to stay alive. He stays up on the tarp where the hyena can't get to him until Richard Parker, the tiger, jumps out and eats the hyena. Pi is strong and smart enough to avoid getting eaten or even hurt by any of the animals, and he lives to see another