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The fate of the cockroach summary
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Who are the cockroach people? In basic words, they are the Chicanas and Chicanos, the Mexican-American race. They are the general population that do not belong anywhere but also belong to two different races, which are Mexico and America. They are considered the pariahs of both countries; it is possible that they are to white for Mexico or to Mexican for America. The novel, The Revolt of the Cockroach People by Oscar Zeta Acosta, is a captivating story of a Chicano lawyer named Buffalo Zeta Brown and every one of his hardships. He recounts the story of the Chicano individuals from his own experience, deliberately using dialect to highlight his outrage and energy for political injustices. Alongside dialect, Acosta additionally uses symbols
to transmit meaningful information. For instance, throughout the novel, he compares the Chicano people with cockroaches. The novel takes place in different areas across Los Angeles.
Mary Cowhey’s Black Ants and Buddhists, explains how to implement a Multicultural Education into the primary grades. Her pedagogy encourages educators to take a step back from curriculum demands, and a step toward teaching children to think critically in the “organic happenings of life in the classroom” (Charney). This book is written in a memoir-like fashion to convey what a classroom looks like when students are encouraged to speak their mind, engage with their community, and learn through rich experiences.
In the essay The Chosen People, Stewart Ewen, discusses his perspective of middle class America. Specifically, he explores the idea that the middle class is suffering from an identity crisis. According to Ewen’s theory, “the notion of personal distinction [in America] is leading to an identity crisis” of the non-upper class. (185) The source of this identity crisis is mass consumerism. As a result of the Industrial Revolution and mass production, products became cheaper and therefore more available to the non-elite classes. “Mass production was investing individuals with tools of identity, marks of personhood.” (Ewen 187) Through advertising, junk mail and style industries, the middle class is always striving for “a stylistic affinity to wealth,” finding “delight in the unreal,” and obsessed with “cheap luxury items.” (Ewen 185-6) In other words, instead of defining themselves based on who they are on the inside, the people of middle class America define themselves in terms of external image and material possessions.
“As long as Latino kills Latino… we’ll always be little people,” stated Ernesto Quinonez. This statement comments on the integration of society within an individual’s identity and it’s long lasting effects. The perception of who we are behind closed doors and who we are in public greatly influences our state of mind and our internal well-being. Throughout Quinonez’s Bodega Dreams, the reader can clearly see how one’s traditional culture and perception of private vs. public image is valued amongst the characters. At times, the reader may notice an internal struggle within multiple characters. The thought of going against what may be considered “normal” can be quite nerve-racking for
Think of a North America without electricity, no running water, no government, almost no buildings left intact, and ravaged by a Chinese manufactured plague, even though it’s hard to imagine that's what happened in Jeff Hirsch’s The Eleventh Plague. In Jeff Hirsch’s Eleventh Plague a family made up of the Dad, Mom, Grandfather, and son are trying to survive in a North America ravaged by a Chinese Plague , But then the mom and grandpa die and dad and Stephen are left on their own, but when the dad gets injured running away from some slavers, A Town named Settlers Landing that seems too good to be true takes them in. Then Stephen befriends a girl named Jenny, and when they play a prank that sends Jenny, and when they play a prank that sends the town into chaos. A war is started and it is up to them to help stop it. I thought that The Eleventh Plague was a believable piece of Speculative Fiction because of Hirsch's use of elements of Conflict, Theme, and Red Herrings.
Living in Los Angeles there are social issues such as race, gender, and geography that are still intact from the past. The main one of the social issues that we are still suffering from and living with is the representations of gender in Los Angeles. Gender representations in The Revolt of the Cockroach People by Oscar Zeta Acosta which he discusses about women figure highly but hardly acknowledge them in the midst of a “semi-autobiographical account” of the Chicano Power movement. According to Acosta, women are just the concubines, mourners, and supporters to their men. Acosta barely talks about the powerful women who had worked very hard behind the prospect to promote the case and those that are point out are only described in sexualized
Whether people will deny it or not, it is certainly apparent that human nature is all too evil; for there is a demon that lurks in everyone, just waiting to come out. Humans can build civilizations and attempt to deviate themselves from such basic instincts, yet nevertheless, evil is not something that they can run from; it is not something that they can defeat. William Golding knew this, and so in his book, Lord of the Flies, he presents so by portraying a microcosm of a society in the form of little British schoolboys. Their plane, in an attempt to escape from the raging war, came to its own demise as it was shot down, leaving the boys stranded on an island they know nothing of. Ralph, later on the leader of the boys, and with the help of
Can savagery drive someone to murder? The book Lord of the Flies by William Golding displays this situation. A group of children containing only males are trapped on an island and many turn towards savagery after being isolated. Jack is the main leader of the savage children while Ralph is still humane and civilized and is trying to restore order. The boys were driven towards savagery but still had the right and conscious mind to make a reasonable choice not to commit murder.
In “A Hunger”, “The Penal Colony”, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka succeeded in showing his individuals as obsessed with their profession; however their obsession caused their doom because society asks so much from an individual, only so much can be done. However, regardless of that, these individuals choose their work over themselves, and not even bad health or death can stop them. Because society places immures pressure on Kafka’s work obsessed character, they neglect their well-being and cause their own downfall.
In this world, and in the world of Ayn Rand’s imagination, there are two kinds of people: those who live to create, and those who wish to live as parasites feeding off the benefits of those creations. In Atlas Shrugged, she explores what might happen when the creators of the world stop creating; the parasites are left to try to live on their own. The novels that Miss Rand writes always reflect this sort of thing. She writes of the battle between the two types of people as some write of the battles between good and evil. In reality, each side of the battle can be equated in such terms. These writings provide a detailed analysis of the two forces, and leave the reader with a profound sense of vitality and inspiration.
In order to understand the entirety of a society, we must first understand each part and how it contributes to the stability of the society. According to the functionalist theory, different parts of society are organized to fill discrete needs of each part, which consequently determines the form and shape of society. (Crossman). All of the individual parts of society depend on one another. This is exhibited in “A Bug’s Life” through the distinct roles the ants and grasshoppers play in their own society. The two species are stratified in such a way that they each contribute to the order and productivity of the community. In the movie, the head grasshopper states that “the sun grows the food, the ants pick the food, and the grasshoppers eat the food” (A Bug’s Life). This emphasizes social stability and reliance on one another’s roles. The grasshoppers rely on the ants for food, while the ants rely on the grasshoppers for protection. This effective role allocation and performance is what ensures that together, the ants and grasshoppers form a functioning society to guarantee their survival.
Throughout France in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries majority of the population consisted of peasants who lived in rural areas across an estimated thirty thousand different villages. The lives of these peasants consisted of hard physical labour that usually took place on farms that they rented from a seigneur . “Life was a struggle to grow enough to feed families and meet obligations. Crop yields were relatively low, and the average villager did not own enough land to live comfortably on what it could produce” . This paper will cover peasant revolts in France during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as their suppressions. Two different kinds of revolts will be looked at, tax revolts and religious revolts. The two kinds of revolts will then be compared and analysed.
Bubonic plague is a bacterial infection caused by Yersinia pestis. This infection was named after Alexandre Yersin, a bacteriologist and physician who first discovered that this bacterium was the cause of the bubonic plague. Bubonic plague is known by different names such as Black Death and Black Plague. Black Death and Black Plague seemed to have been the perfect names at the moment because black symbolizes pain, misery, and death. The appearance of a black dot in the underarm area also influenced the naming of this disease. Skin tissues would become damaged causing a black discoloration of the skin. This infection was also known as the Great Plague. In earlier times, it was also called “The Great Mortality” because numerous people succumbed
Albert Camus was a French writer who was very well known all over the world for his different works but especially with the idea of “absurdism”. Camus believed that something that was absurd was not possible by humans or logically. It was beyond ridiculous and therefore impossible. This was the basis of one of his most famous works, The Plague. The Plague is a novel that explores aspects of human nature and condition, destiny, God, and fate. The novel is about a plague that takes place in Oran, Algeria that is fictional, but it’s believed to be relatively based on a cholera outbreak in the mid 1800’s in Oran that killed thousands of people. Dr. Bernard Rieux is the protagonist but also is the narrator. However, he doesn’t admit to being the narrator until the end of the novel. Camus writes in the beginning that the instances in Oran are being told by witnesses of the plague. In The Plague, Camus wants his audience to read the book unbiasedly not knowing the narrator in order to take sides with the characters that one wants to and not to be persuaded by the narrators telling of the events.
The work being criticized in this paper is the Lord of The Flies. The Lord of The Flies, by William Golding, is about the faults in human society as well as in human nature and it achieves this through its heavy use of symbolism. Many smalls symbols go into creating the overly larger picture and overall theme.
During the French Revolution, there were many controversies between the peasants and the aristocracy. In A Tale Of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, most of the peasants are revolutionaries fighting against their nobility. Dickens’ use of imagery throughout the novel tries to sway the reader’s opinions about the peasants. Charles Dickens depicts the French Revolution well with the images of the novel as well as the tone he uses. Throughout the novel, Dickens illustrates through his imagery how the peasants change from poor, secretive, and then on to vicious.