Despair in Tea in the Harem and “La Haine”
The film "La Haine" and the book Tea in the Harem both take place in the suburbs of Paris, a place where brutality reigns and hope perishes. "La Haine" focuses on the lives of three young men, Vinz, Said, and Hubert, while Tea in the Harem looks closely at two men, Majid and Pat. All these characters are deeply troubled, involved in drugs and worshippers of alcohol. They are rough, prone to violence. Their lives are burdened by despair, and hopelessness guides them and those around them. In fact, both the book and the film heavily explore the theme of despair. Despair is portrayed as a ruiner as it crushes, condemns, and kills. It causes women to sell their bodies and men to turn to drink. There is little escape from this crushing force. Education and friendship present themselves as rescuers, but most characters in "La Haine" and Tea in the Harem choose instead to turn to vices, like drugs and sex. This only adds to the anguish in the suburbs though. In the end, this cycle of sex, drugs, violence, and despair overwhelms the characters and causes them to capitulate to a destructive, depression-filled life. The end of Tea in the Harem, however, isn't entirely devoid of optimism. For Pat and Majid, friendship might just offer them enough buoyancy to survive. For the characters in "La Haine" though, all looks grim.
The amount of violence prevalent in the suburbs of Paris is never glossed over in “La Haine” and Tea in the Harem. In Tea in the Harem, one of the first images presented to the reader is of the older residents of the neighborhood buying dogs and training them to sic any intimidating figures, including youths. “La Haine” ends and begins with a gunshot. The occupants of t...
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...s bored and turns to violence or drink or sex or drugs to relieve the pain. After his short vacation, he wakes up and sees he’s still in the banlieues. He’s still unhappy, he’s still desperate. The cycle repeats itself again and again, and death looks sweeter and sweeter. The despair settles, and happiness becomes an impossible ideal. In “La Haine,” this despair leads to death and more violence. Tea in the Harem, however, offers one slight redemption: friendship. At the end of the book, Majid gets arrested, and Pat manages to get away. As the cop car with Majid drives up the road, though, Pat emerges and hands himself over to the police. Although these two men are surrounded by heartache, they find some promise in each other, and this just might be their final escape. For the rest of the residents of the suburbs of Paris, though, despair will haunt them and linger.
The Return of Martin Guerre, written by Natalie Zemon Davis, is the tale of a court case that takes place in sixteenth century France. Martin Guerre is a peasant who deserted his wife and family for many years. While Martin Guerre is gone, a man named Arnaud du Tilh arrives at Martin’s village and claims to be Martin Guerre. Bertrande, who is Guerre’s wife, Guerre’s sisters, and many of the villagers, accepts the imposter. After almost three years of being happily married, Bertrande takes the fraud to court under pressure of Pierre Guerre, her stepfather and Guerre’s brother. Arnaud du Tilh is almost declared innocent, but the real Martin Guerre appears in the courthouse. Throughout this tale, many factors of the peasant life are highlighted. The author gives a very effective and detailed insight to a peasant’s life during the time of Martin Guerre. Davis does a successful job of portraying the peasant lifestyle in sixteenth century France by accentuating the social, cultural, and judicial factors of everyday peasant life.
The story, whose main theme is violence, attempts to chronicle the short span of fanaticism that inspires youth that leads to turmoil in the first place. In this chaotic situation however, fanaticism is what. one may need in order to survive and this is exactly what the sniper is facing. This is shown when the sniper is said to be the “student”. with the face of an ascetic”.
It is my intention to compare the book, Dangerous Liaisons by Choderlos de Laclos, to its modern movie version, Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I intend to examine how the original French text was modified in reference to plot, character, morals/values, and themes. I also plan to discuss how these transformations change the meaning of the story and reflect different cultural/historical contexts. There are some major differences between these two works, if only because of when they were written.
However, what really frames Francine du Plessix Gray’s biography is not so much the “fin du dix huitième siècle” but the “fin du vingtième siècle” and the “reality” material from Sade’s life that made it possible to represent the Marquis, his sons, his wife, mother-in-law, father-in-law, and uncle as so many of the people who populate the running narrative of criminals, deadbeat dads, incestuous relatives, date-raping playboys, and battered women that fill soap operas, day-time talk, women’s magazines, talk radio, and the tabloids. This paper, then, explores Sade’s biography not as a narrative of (the Marquis de Sade’s) his life, but as a narrative that pleases today’s reader because it serves up a voyeur’s view of (in) his “dysfunctional” family life “at home” that we are all too familiar with. This becomes abundantly apparent when du Plessix-Gray’s rendering of the Marquis and the Marquise’s lives are superimposed over the récit of lives that we read about all the time in the popular press and observe in television soaps and other series. Ultimately, we are interested in what such a reading, writing and representation of Sade’s life does to Sade’s persona and status, both in the world of letters, but more importantly, in the world at large.
...amily members have area rugs; don’t clearly delineate changes in the grading of floors, and lack bathing/toileting facilities that accommodate for easy access. Often modifications have to be made by family to the organization of living space and their health behaviors.
In 1989, a tragedy happened that would later be known as a national day of remembrance of the Montreal Massacre. Marc Lepine, the shooter, took the lives of many victims as well as his own, at the school of Polytechnique in Montreal. Because of his hatred of feminism, he felt compelled to kill fourteen of the female engineering students as well as any other female students or faculty who got in his way. Through the powerful film of “Polytechnique” and the credible facts of “The Seven Minute Life of Marc Lepine,” one could not help but to see a victim in Lepine, whose fate was tempted since the moment of his birth. Through the stimulating images of the movie and the emotional, yet credible, writing of Petrowski, Marc Lepine is seen as a victim of the massacre as well as the 14 other female victims of this horrific event in history.
Darnton, Robert. The Great Cat Massacre: And Other Episodes in French Cultural History. First Edition. New York: Basic Books, 1999
Meursault’s Maman, when introduced to the reader, has already passed away; however, her past relationships that disclose themselves when Meursault attends the funeral directly contrast her son’s emotional receptivity, or lack thereof. During Maman’s funeral, a woman “in the second row...emitted a little choking sob” (8). The keeper subsequently relieves Meursault of his frustration by explaining to him that “she was devoted to [his] mother” and that they were close friends (8). Along with friendship, Maman also embraces romance during her last few days with her relationship with Thomas Perez at the home, where “[he] and [maman] [are] almost inseparable” and “people [would] tease Perez about having a fiance” (10). Maman’s attempt to form de...
... One of the women offers them drug but they reject it which they would accept the invitation before all of the incident. When the women says that the narrator and his two friends seem “ pretty bad characters”, the narrator just wants to cry. They finally get the acceptance into the world of being “bad guys” however, they want to run away from it. Boyle also tells the story in such transitional form, from night to day, from water to land to express the change of the three teenage characters which is from naive to mature.
Maupassant, Guy De. “An Adventure in Paris”. The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Cassill, RV. New York: Norton & Company, Inc. 2000. 511-516 Print.
La Haine is a French film from the 1990s. The film is in black and white camera effect and sets a serious mood and tone. The movie starts off with clips of people rioting and cars being overturned. Right away, you can tell one of the themes in this film will be related with violence. The movie’s main characters are three young men; Said, Hubert, and Vinz. They all were from the projects. Although the three of them were ethnically diverse from one another. They derived from the same background and experienced similar conflicts within the French society. La Haine greatly exhibited how harsh life was for the people living in the projects. The movie revolved around themes such as violence, racism, and the struggle of coming from a relatively poor
The streets of Philadelphia are rapidly becoming a home to violent acts and random homicides. Innocent lives are taken every day due to the strong presence of gangs, and the streets are run by unruly groups of fearless young adults. Gang violence in Philadelphia is a major issue, and the citizens will never be safe until gang prevention occurs. Gang prevention is not a simple task, but with the right resources available, it is possible. Gang violence is a problem that will contribute to the collapse of Philadelphia, and it has yet to be solved throughout many generations. With gang violence on the rise, the best solution to gang violence is to educate the youth and parents about gangs and use family support to prevent the creation of gang members from the problem’s core.
A gang is a group of people who interact among themselves. Teen violence is contributed to these gangs. Most gangs claim neighborhoods as their territory and try to control everything inside that territory. This kind of antisocial behavior is a major problem in American Society.
The protagonists, The Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, consider it their life’s ambition to sadistically control and dominate those around them through sexual intrigue. These two villains are indeed locked in psychological combat to see who can actually ‘out-do’ the other in stalking, capturing and destroying the souls of others. Taking absolute pleasure in ripping any virtue from the hearts of their prey, Merteuil and Valmont wave their accomplishments in front of each other like spoils of war. The less the chance of surrender, the more relentless is the pursuit.
The Absurdist notion that an individual needs no external value to survive is portrayed by Meursault’s lack of remorse shown toward his crime and lack of compassion shown toward Marie. Rather, he is an end to himself, his life being justified by his sole existence. Meursault does not view prison as a punishment for killing the Arab; ins...