1. Write a summary of “Baghdad Express” in about 150 words. The short film "Baghdad Express" presents us to Maya, a young girl who works in her father’s restaurant. We meet her walking towards an interview that possibly can result in her being accepted to a fashion school by getting a scholar ship. To get in would fulfill Maya’s greatest desire of working in the fashion industry, and her friends Talal and Louise are both encouraging her to achieve her dream. But Maya is very observant towards her father and his illness. Her father is very protective of her, and she is very aware of the fact that he doesn’t want her to leave him. Even though it is not said directly. At one point the father fires Talal, because he thinks that Maya and him are She’s doubting even though a career in the fashion industry is her childhood dream, a dream inspired by sewing with her mother, as it is shown in the flashbacks. You see this in every way of her personal behavior. Her room is decorated with mannequins, fashion posters and it generally seems as she is very aware of what she’s wearing and how people regard her. It therefore seem odd, that she is having any doubt. The worry is caused by her confusing relationship towards her father. They both seem to want what’s best for the two as individuals, but there is some kind of undertone of holding on. Holding on to what is familiar and well known. What separates the two, is how this feeling is shown. Maya is considering the father’s feelings more than her own. She can’t seem to do anything that goes against his approach, which she thinks is a desire of her staying with him. The father never says this though, so it’s something she just assumes. The clash of one’s dreams and obligation is the main theme of the short film. The fact that she ends up burning the letter is a symbol of her choosing her family over her own desires and urges. She realizes that she could never leave her father, and taking the scholar ship may seem as a to big upheaval. Maybe she’s just
because it would anger her husband. She was afraid to go back to school and
There is one letter in particular. which shows how important this correspondence is to her. I hate you. you do not write back nor be my Pen Friend I think you are the Ice Queen instead of a king.
This movie has been reworked from Maya Angelou’s best selling novel and the story takes place in a bigoted town in Stamps, Arkansas where Maya and her brother, Bailey, grow up with their grandmother and uncle. The Angelous were African Americans, they had to deal with racism from the infamous Ku Klux Klan and the other Caucasians in town. Despite disdain from the Caucasians, Maya also has familial problems. She travels back and forth between her mother’s and grandmother’s house not being able to situate herself in either’s home. However, Maya perseveres. She begins school and excels in academics. The turning point of the movie is when Maya is sexually assaulted, consequently, she withdraws into total silence. It is with the help of her kind teacher that Maya is mentally restored to herself: enthusiastic, joyful and bright. She makes an emotional valedictory speech at her graduation where she expressed her feelings and emotions towards her friends, fellow classmates, teachers and life at Stamps. Her eventful time from her youth to her graduation serve to teach a person to define themselves, not for others to define a person.
Detective Maya Vasquez is the protagonist of the show. She comes from a lower end of a middle class economic background and is a native of Lake Arthur. Three ways to describe her are: intrepid, a straight-shooter, and persistent. Maya is also Latina which plays an important role in the way she is treated by side characters. She did not attend college, but did attend and complete her training at a police academy. Maya’s character is similar to the theme in Shondaland of having a multi-dimensional career-driven female lead. However, unlike Scandal’s Olivia Pope and How to Get Away With Murder’s Annalise Keating, Maya Vasquez is not world-renowned or even well revered within her own town. Instead she struggles to be taken seriously in her field
This literary critique was found on the Bryant Library database. It talks about how well Maya conveys her message to her readers as well as portraying vivid scenes in her reader’s minds’. Maya’s sense of story and her passionate desire to overcome obstacles and strive for greatness and self-appreciation is what makes Maya an outlier. Living in America, Angelou believed that African American as a whole must find emotional, intellectual, and spiritual sustenance through reverting back to their “home” of Africa. According to Maya, “Home” was the best place to capture a sense of family, past, and tradition. When it comes to Maya’s works of literature, her novels seems to be more critically acclaimed then her poetry. With that being said, Angelou pursues harsh social and political issues involving African American in her poems. Some of these themes are the struggle for civil rights in America and Africa, the feminist movement, Maya’s relationship with her son, and her awareness of the difficulties of living in America's struggling classes. Nevertheless, in all of Maya’s works of literature she is able to “harness the power of the word” through an extraordinary understanding of the language and events she uses and went through. Reading this critique made me have a better understanding of the process Maya went through in order to illustrate her life to her readers. It was not just sitting down with a pen and paper and just writing thoughts down. It was really, Maya being able to perfect something that she c...
a passage from the letter she is writing to add a personal feel to the
The Scarlet Letter is a story about human reaction to circumstances and the justification behind these actions. Each of the central characters in the novel represents a side of an extremely serious situation, adultery. Each of the characters has a certain amount of justification behind their actions and each searches for a way to rise out of his/her condition.
Maya knows that to be black and female is to be faced with violence and violation. This is brought into focus when she goes to live with her mother and is raped by her mother’s boyfriend. When Maya is faced with this catastrophe, tells who did this to her, and the man is killed, she believes her voice killed him. She withdraws into herself and vows never to speak again. Her mother feeling that she has done everything in her power to make Maya talk, but can cannot reach her, sends Maya and her brother back to Stamps. After Maya returns to Stamps and with the help of her Teacher-Ms. Flowers she begins to speak again.
The Persian Gulf War was a time period of confusion. H.W. Bush was just elected into presidency in the United States. The Cold War had subsided and the Berlin Wall had just been torn down. It all seemed calm for the brief years preceding the Persian Gulf War. Nobody expected Iraq to invade Kuwait, the Middle East was blindsided. Nations within the area called for help to stop Iraq from wherever they could get it. The United States responded fast and with action. President H.W. Bush sent in troops and supplies to calm this unexpected invasion, but it soon became an all-out war. Saddam Hussein ruled over Iraq during this time, and he sent his military to invade Kuwait. The causes of the war are often not thought of, but the effects of the war are widely known. These effects are devastating for every country that was involved in this conflict.
Chase, Diane Z. and Arlen F. Chase. Changes in Maya Religious Worldview. Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2009. Print.
Iraq’s history is one of both prosperity and violence, and dates back to the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia. While dominated by a variety of civilizations, the region enjoyed a relatively stable society. Since the birth of Islam, the religion has been the dominant cultural belief of the region, and has made its way into the laws and ruling of the region. (InDepth Info, 2010)
The novel’s young protagonist first loses her sense of self during early childhood as a result of her constant self-comparison to White people. In this autobiography, Angelou refers to herself by her full name, Marguerite Ann Johnson. Maya (in the novel Marguerite Johnson) first shows her discontent of her skin when she puts on her silk Easter dress hoping to resemble a movie star and “look like one of the sweet little white girls who were everybody’s dream of what was right in the world” (Angelou 2). To her, the vision of this magnificent movie star would only
Maya never had a very functional family. Her mother, Vivian Baxter, was a nurse and realtor and her father Bailey Johnson was a navy dietician. When Maya was just 3 years old her parents divorced. Maya's father shipped her and 4 year old brother Bailey to live with his mother in Arkansas while their mother moved to California. Because her parents divorced when she was so young, Maya never really knew what a healthy relationshop looked like and in the long run this affected her own love life. In 1950, however, when Maya was just 22, she married Tosh Angelos, an ex-sailor. They didn't have much in common though and 3 years later they were divorced. Maya did have other relationships with men but they never seemed to work out. Although her relationships involving love weren't successful, her friendships were. In 1964, Maya met Malcolm X. The two became great friends and he even offered her a job to help him build a new civil rights organization, the Organization of African American Unity. Unfortunately, he was assassinated shortly after she began working with him. After Malcolm X's assasination, Martin Luther King Jr. contacted Maya and asked for her help to organize a march ...
At first Maya is bitter about being abandoned by her parents, however she slowly adapts to living with her grandmother along with her brother Bailey. As she grows accustomed to placing Annie as her mother and referring to her as “momma”, she develops trust and affection that places Annie in a hierarchy in Maya’s eyes. In this sense, her concept of motherhood is one that inspires trust based on strength of character and ability to offer comfort and assurance. Regarding her mother Vivian, Maya showcases trust when she asks her about the changes in her body and whether she could be a lesbian based on these changes or a lack thereof. Vivian further evokes Maya’s trust when she allows her to cut school when Maya does not feel like attending classes after she started working as a bus conductor.
Maya civilization was based mainly on agriculture and religion. Maya every day life revolved around an innumerable number of earth Gods. The most important God was chief, ruler of all Gods. The Mayans prayed to these God’s particularly about their crops. For example, they prayed to the Rain God to nourish their crops. They practiced their religion during ceremonies conducted by priests. They also practiced confession and even fasted before important ceremonies (Gann and Thompson 1931 118-138). The Mayans also b...