Trainspotting, written by Scottish author Irvine Welsh, is a story following the lives of a group of heroin-addicted youth in Edinburgh, known as the “Skag Boys”. The story alternates between narrators but maintains a focus on the most sane of the group, Mark Renton, who builds a reputation for dropping his addiction and relapsing suddenly. The illicit drug culture the Skag Boys live provide insight to a life different from the stereotypical image of bagpipe-playing, kilt-wearing, red-headed scots depicted in American movies. Welsh veers away from these Scottish stereotypes by constructing boundaries between these Scotland’s clichés and its postmodern views, specifically focusing on boundaries between location, culture, and sobriety. In order …show more content…
At one point in the novel, Begbie, a friend of Renton’s, listens as Canadian tourists carry on about Edinburg’s beauty and the mentions the castle, the gardens and such. Dismissively, he claims “that’s aw they tourist(s)… ken the castle n Princes Street, n the High Street" (Welsh 115). MacLeod mentions that for Renton, Princes Street is a "hideous street, deadened by tourists and shoppers… the twin curses ay modern capitalism" (qtd. in Trainspotting 228). Begbie’s opinion of the castle differs from Renton’s view on the Princes Street because his views are less harsh. He sees it as though the castle serves to be good for Edinburg’s economy, introducing foreign capital to the city. Macleod also mentions that while the tourists are enthused by their experience of the castle and Edinburg’s beauty, “Begbie understands that such beauty is ultimately sold as a commodity and is unavailable to people who lack the purchasing power necessary to enjoy it” (91). That's how it fuckin works in real hfe, if ye urnae a rich cunt wi a big fuckin hoose in plenty poppy" (115). Begbie then seperates Edinburgh creating a temporary boundary between the two halves of the city. Uptown Edinburgh is defined by Begbie exclusively as a territitory "rich c*nts". More to the point, as MacLeod had …show more content…
Considering the fact that Renton and the skag boys all detest tourists, the boys tend to have a stronger hatred for Leith considering that there are many vagabonds who roam as if they were tourists, all the while having an absence of money. This is what Renton and his friends are depicted as, despite the several tourist-like situations. MacLeod describes it as: “like tourists in the contingency of their life strategies, unlike them in terms of their inability to (legitimately) access capital and consequently unable to dictate the precise terms of their own mobility… they become perverse caricatures of tourists: suspiciously similar to them in many particulars, yet simultaneously figured as their nightmare antithesis” (93). These similarities are what end up making the division so prominent, for “the spontaneous manifestation of Leith-poverty in Edinburgh-affluence makes people uneasy because it highlights the suppressed interconnections between tourist and vagabond” (MacLeod 95). Although Leith does not have the same tourist attractions such as the castle in Edinburgh, the Leith Central Station does serve as an “attraction” within Leith. A train station without trains, the Leith Central Station serves as a home for the homeless and a dead-end to the poor. MacLeod
Michael Patrick MacDonald lived a frightening life. To turn the book over and read the back cover, one might picture a decidedly idyllic existence. At times frightening, at times splendid, but always full of love. But to open this book is to open the door to Southie's ugly truth, to MacDonald's ugly truth, to take it in for all it's worth, to draw our own conclusions. One boy's hell is another boy's playground. Ma MacDonald is a palm tree in a hurricane, bending and swaying in the violent winds of Southie's interior, even as things are flying at her head, she crouches down to protect her children, to keep them out of harms way. We grew up watching Sesame Street, Reading Rainbow and Peanuts. Michael Patrick MacDonald grew up watching violence, sadness and death.
In Randa’s castle there is a huge central garden for the citizens in the area, and people are always traveling to it and passing through because of its extravagance. “Horses clattered onto the marble floor of Randa’s inner courtyard. the white castle rose and stood brightly against the green marble of the floor. Balconied passageways lined the walls above, so that the people of the court could look down into the courtyard. admire Randa’s great garden of crawling vines and pink flowering trees.
The imaginative Nightmare Before Christmas is considered one of the most imaginative films in some of the most recent decades. This film masterpiece from the creative and revolutionary mind of Tim Burton has been one of my favorite movies from the time that I first saw it when I was a small child, to now. The beautiful textures and colors perfect capture both holidays of Halloween and Christmas in the film. Along with the textures comes a masterfully soundtrack that so perfectly adds mood and depth to this story. The even the beautiful textures are enough for this film to land itself in someone’s favorite list.
Throughout his brief existence on this earth, Dransfield was able to produce an extensive body of work that ranged from the human act of “loving” to the dreadful experience of having a drug overdose. His work is “framed within the literary construct of the ‘Generation of ’68’” because it undeniably challenged the “literary status quo” during that period of time, and he “overwhelmed it with sheer talent” (Kinsella, 2002). Dransfield was innovative, unique, and was seen as somewhat a “global poet, and something of a prophet” (Kinsella, 2002). He existed during a time where poets were more inclined to avoid any mention of what they really did ( in the drug using sense), taking refuge in the socially accepted subject of football, rather than confronting the challenges associated with drug use. Dransfield had no such inhibitions, he was the “quintessential drug poet” in Australian literary history, and it was through his drug usage—both the beauty and the destruction of it—that Dransfield was able to fully let his talent and generosity shine for all to see. He blazed the new trails for all those that were to follow him, and successfully created a place for the “authentic experience” in the realm of poetry.
"HER ORIGINAL NAME was Patricia Neal"(Reynolds1), but the author of Fried Green Tomatoes is better known under the alias: Fannie Flagg. In the novel Fried Green Tomatoes she uniquely compares the modern day world to the world in the early and the middle 1900’s. As the novel shifts from the 1930’s to the 1980’s the significance of life is seen through two of the main characters, Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode and Evelyn Couch, as life ends and begins. Fannie Flagg shows that living life to its fullest indeed has its consequences, but is the only way to live a happy life without regrets.
The 1986 film “Sixteen Candles” tells a timeless tale of growing up in suburban America. The film’s star, Sam, played by Molly Ringwald, wakes up with big expectations on her sweet sixteenth birthday only to be completely disappointed. Not only does she find that she looks exactly the same as when she was fifteen, but her family is so preoccupied with her older sister’s wedding that they forget her birthday altogether.
The Shining is about a white middle class dysfunctional family that suffers from natural and supernatural stresses in an isolated Rocky mountain hotel. .The father, a former teacher turned writer, is portrayed as a habitual drinker, wife- and child-abuser, with a kind of evil streak The mother is shown as a battered woman. The film suggests that due to the abuse at the hands of his father and the passivity of his mother, the child of this family developed psychological problems. He had imaginary friends and began to see frightening images.
Twelve Angry Men is a very interesting play about an unfortunate young man, who was convicted of killing his dad. The worst part was, the young man was only nineteen, and his life was just starting. The jurors listened to all the evidence, then came the hard part, making the decision: guilty, or innocent. Eleven jurors said guilty and only one said innocent. There was a lot of peer pressure involved. I decided to write about different peer pressures three of the jurors used.
The McCourt family leaves their apartment in Brooklyn to set sail for Ireland, leaving behind an apartment with indoor plumbing and the memory of a dead sister in hopes of finding a better life amongst “the poverty, the shiftless loquacious alcoholic father, the pious defeated mother moaning by the fire, pompous priests, and bullying schoolmasters” of Ireland. This tragic story is told from the point of view of a child, Frank McCourt, whose father is a driftless alcoholic and whose mother does moan by the fire.
Juror #1 originally thought that the boy was guilty. He was convinced that the evidence was concrete enough to convict the boy. He continued to think this until the jury voted the first time and saw that one of the jurors thought that the boy was innocent. Then throughout the movie, all of the jurors were slowly convinced that the boy was no guilty.
During the late 80’s, Phil Alden Robinson developed a sensational story that revolved around a real life account of a sport tragedy. The viewers were immersed in a touching account of how sport, a social interest, can play a powerful role in human bonding; thus becoming a very spiritual component of life. It in itself has a profound effect on the societies’ spiritual experiences; and just like religion can respectfully be considered a form of spirituality for a modern society, as exemplified in Robinson’s movie ‘Field of Dreams’. This story resonates far beyond the power of dreams, its appeal lies in a vision of a perfect sport and the love for which can inadvertently resolve issues no matter how grand. The plot at first presents itself as a complex; or maybe even a strange series of events, but somehow its scenes string themselves into a moral about redemption and deep interpersonal bonds.
Twenty-eight days…six hours…forty-two minutes…twelve seconds, that is when the world will end. The movie Donnie Darko, Frank tells Donnie that the world will end in just a short time. Throughout the movie, different literary devices are experimented to give the movie a deeper meaning. This provides the audience with a hidden message that gathers the viewer’s attention while keeping them entertained. Donnie Darko is a movie that has imagery, symbolism, and foreshadowing and by merging these devices creates a film that holds their audience’s attention.
I spent a lot of time considering what movie I would watch to write this essay. I listed off the movies that I would like to watch again, and then I decided on The Notebook. I didn’t really think I could write about adolescence or children, so I thought that, maybe, I could write about the elderly. The love story that The Notebook tells is truly amazing. I love watching this movie, although I cry every time I watch it. The Notebook is about an elderly man that tells the story of his life with the one he loves the most, his wife. He is telling the story to his wife, who has Alzheimer’s Disease, which is a degenerative disease that affects a person’s memory. She has no recollection of him or their life together, or even her own children. She wrote the story of their love herself, so that when he read the story to her, she would come back to him. There are three things that I would like to discuss about this movie. First, I would like to discuss their stage of life and the theory that I believe describes their stage of life the best. Second, I would like to discuss Alzheimer’s DIsease and its affect on the main character who has it and her family. Third, I would like to discuss how at the end of the movie, they died together. I know it is a movie, but I do know that it is known that elderly people who have been together for a long time, usually die not to far apart from one another.
Minority Report is a 2002 science fiction film directed by renowned director Steven Spielberg and is set in the year 2054 in Washington, D. C. The film revolves around an elite law enforcing squad; Precrime. The Precrime Division uses three genetically altered humans called Pre-Cogs whom possesses special powers to see into the future and predict crimes beforehand. After each crime is foreseen and analyzed, Precrime police officers are sent to the crime location to apprehend the future murderers and place them under arrest. The future murderers are then put into a sleep state with a device called a "halo". Based on Minority Report, it suggests that humans are free willed beings and have the ability to alter the future that was predetermined for them.