The speech that is most compelling and persuasive is David Foster Wallace's, "This is water." His speech describes a basic scenario of two fishes not understanding their reality and surroundings, water. Water is the environment they need to survive, however they have no understanding of what it is. He uses this a the basis of his speech, relating the fishes to people who are unconscious of their surroundings. He describes that people must constantly exercise their ability to control how they think instead of mindlessly going through life. This represents the awareness of people must have to go through life and being able to be aware of what is all around us just like water and the Fish. The usage of the parallels between the fish scenario and
The speech I chose was Cal Ripken Jr.’s it was given at the Orioles home ball park, Camden Yards at his last home game before retiring. It is a special occasion speech and was given in front of over 48,000 fans. He used a tried and true opening sentence that although a little altered had a very familiar ring. He opened with “As a kid, I had this dream” a very loose but familiar take on MLK’s “I have a dream”. This was a great attention getter and probably had people on their feet immediately. This audience was already motivate to hear his speech so that was not an issue. Most of the fans were there for the purpose of hearing his retirement speech. He did not preview his points in the introduction he addressed those in the body of his speech one at a time. He did not try to establish credibility as he was speaking about himself so who knows more about him than himself.
The speech that I have chosen is of Lieutenant Colonel Harold in the 2002 movie We Were Soldiers. The speech occurs in the beginning of the movie prior to the soldiers heading into war in Vietnam. I chose to deliver this speech because its message is very powerfully and meaningful. Due to it encouraging soldiers to look beyond their identity and unit to accomplish a
In Daniel Wallace’s novel, Big Fish: A Novel of Mythic Proportions and Tim Burton’s film, Big Fish, the relationship between the dying protagonist, Edward Bloom and his estranged son, William Bloom, is centrally to the story in both the novel and film. Like many fathers in today's society, Edward Bloom wishes to leave his son with something to remember him by after he is dead. It is for this reason the many adventures of Edward Bloom are deeply interwoven into the core of all the various stories Edward tells to mystify his son with as a child. Despite the many issues father and son have in their tense relationship as adults, Daniel Wallace and Tim Burton’s adaptation of Wallace’s novel focalizes on the strained relationship between Edward Bloom and William Bloom. In both Wallace’s novel and Burton’s film, they effectively portray how the relationship between Edward Bloom and William Bloom is filled with bitter resentment and indifference towards each other. Only with William’s attempt to finally reconcile with his dying father and navigating through his father fantastical fables does those established feelings of apathy and dislike begin to wane. With Burton’s craftily brilliant reconstruction of Wallace’s story does the stories of Edward Bloom and his son blossom onto screen.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is written with the idea of a totalitarian society that has complete social stability. Huxley demonstrates how a stable world deprives a person of their individuality, something that was also lost in Anthem by Ayn Rand. Brave New World exemplifies the great sacrifice needed to achieve such a stable world. This novel envisions a world where the government has complete control over people in its mission for social stability and conformity. The outcome of this is that the government has created a society with no love, freedom, creativity, and the human desire for happiness.
The Color of Water is an autobiography about a woman named Ruth Mcbride Jordan. She is the mother of the author of the book, James Mcbride. Ruth is a very strong woman with a lot of faith in God. She is a Polish immigrant and she faces some hardships in the story. She immigrated to America with her Jewish and Polish family when she was just a little girl. Throughout the book, her identity is transformed through all of the events that occur with her and the other characters. All of the important things in her life consist of: religion, faith, God, education, work, and school. The reason that I say that Ruth Mcbride is a strong woman is because she has the ability to get through several hardships in her life. After reading, The Color of Water, I would state that Ruth Mcbride has obtained the identity of a strong mother with a lot of faith and confidence.
Brave New World, a novel by Aldous Huxley was written at a tine in history when war had ravaged much of the nation, Depression was blanketing society, and people’s wills were being put to the test. Science had become an overwhelming force for better or for worse. People had witnessed science saving and preventing millions of lives with vaccinations and such, but on the contrary, had also witnessed it kill with horrifying “factory-like” efficiency in WW I (the age of machine guns and chemical warfare). Brave New World is not intended to be a happy book, it is more Huxley’s way of describing what he believes is coming to us. He is basically saying, “This is our future”. Huxley’s writings are known for dealing with conflicts between the interest of the individual and the interests of society. Brave New World addresses this conflict in a fictional future (approximately 500 years into the future) in which free will and individuality have been sacrificed to achieve complete social stability.
The book, Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley, is a radical story that is interpreted as a potential caution to us, society, if we keep making poor life choices. In the novel, Huxley depicts a culture where people are programmed to live forever and forced to think that sex and drugs are. For them, the idea of having a family with a mother and a father is absolutely repulsive to think about. Even though some of Huxley’s thoughts are unrealistic, the meaning behind them can be seen today. Nowadays, the three ideas that are bringing us closer to the Brave New World true are the advancements in technology, an obsession to remain young, and the increasing rate of drug use.
The story of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley depicts a utopian society conflicted by stability. People are oblivious to the morals and ethics upheld by their ancestors 600 years before and, in turn, are demoralized. Babies are born in laboratories, relationships last no longer than "bedtime", and drugs are provided by government for daily use by their citizens. The drug, "soma" symbolizes estatic rapture experienced by the gloomy looking for escape, material religion for those looking for comfort from a supernatural force, abused aphrodisiac for lovers looking to have a good time, and complete technocracy from a government using a controlled substance to dominate the minds of its people. Soma and its uses reveal a society in ruins using drugs as an escape from reality and life's struggles.
From reading Fukuyama’s Our Posthuman Future I gathered that if the human mind and body are shaped by tons of genes, as the decoding of the human genome seems to highlight, then biotechnologist will be able to change both one day in searching to perfect the flawed human clay, will modify human nature. Fukuyama asserts his thoughts about what in fact is at stake with biotechnology in which he states, “Is…the very grounding of the human moral sense”. Throughout the reading it became clear that Fukuyama’s purpose was not to delineate the consequences of biotechnology, but to argue that biotechnology threatens both the very distinction of a human being and the existing social fabric. He also asserts that government institutions should be established to evaluate and regulate biotechnological innovations. Throughout his book he investigates ways in which biotechnology may change the human essence with no intention to experience repeat of history and the hopes to stray far away from a post human future. It seems that Fukuyama fears that biotechnology will make monsters of us all to say the least being that human values are rooted in human nature and human nature is rooted in our biological being, which is particularly in our genes. Tampering with human biology could alter human nature, convert our principles and last but not least undermine capitalism.
In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a haunting warning of a possible future for the world is presented to readers. The novel’s world is composed of dystopian strata plagued by a dependence on drugs, technology, and a well-defined social class system. Huxley’s uncanny foresight specific to segregation and social class strata is startling because readers do not expect to find aspects of Brave New World’s segregation and class structure in modern-day American society. Although it was written in the mid-1930s, Huxley’s Brave New World contains themes of blatant segregation and a tiered social class system similar to that of contemporary society.
In the story "So Much Water So Close To Home" a young girl is raped, killed and found in a river where four men are fishing. What makes this story interesting is that after discovering the body they did not report it until after they left, three days later. When one of the men who discovered her, the husband of the narrator, Stuart returns home he doesn't tell his wife about the incident until the following morning. Because of this, Claire believes that all men are responsible for the murder of the girl. Due to these facts she acts irrationally, suspiciously, and with distrust not only towards her husband, but also to all men in general.
The relationship you have with others often has a direct effect on the basis of your very own personal identity. In the essay "On The Rainy River," the author Tim O'Brien tells about his experiences and how his relationship with a single person had effected his life so dramatically. It is hard for anyone to rely fully on their own personal experiences when there are so many other people out there with different experiences of their own. Sometimes it take the experiences and knowledge of others to help you learn and build from them to help form your own personal identity. In the essay, O'Brien speaks about his experiences with a man by the name of Elroy Berdahl, the owner of the fishing lodge that O'Brien stays at while on how journey to find himself. The experiences O'Brien has while there helps him to open his mind and realize what his true personal identity was. It gives you a sense than our own personal identities are built on the relationships we have with others. There are many influence out there such as our family and friends. Sometimes even groups of people such as others of our nationality and religion have a space in building our personal identities.
Hemingway uses details of natural and manufactured settings to foreshadow the couple's breakup and to emphasize their incompatibility. He uses "twelve feet of dark water" to foreshadow their breakup. Water symbolizes the complexity of life which is why it foreshadows the event later on in the story. Marjorie and Nick have different tones when they were talking about Horton's Bay. Marjorie said "There's our old ruin, Nick." The key word that she used is "our" meaning she thought of it as something they had shared as a memory together. Nick said "There it is" very plainly. The tones that they use are very different. Later on Marjorie calls it a "castle," which also shows that it means something completely different to her than it does to Nick.
Think about a world where you first experience sex when you’re a little kid. A world where books and flowers might not be respected but you're conditioned to be happy. Conditioned to have sex with anyone you want, whenever you feel like it. It's true that you don't have to worry about violence and when you start feeling stressed, all you have to take is soma (a drug that creates pleasure and happiness.) then feel better. In the story, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, that’s how their world worked and I do not believe that our world will ever come to a point like it. I agree that there is a sufficient amount of people that want to be happy but I feel like somethings aren’t realistic in the book that’s going to happen in our future. Also, I believe that many people want to have world peace but that requires no violence and something that I wish would happen but can’t see happen. Everyone isn’t the same and we all want different things leading to violence because everyone has their own way to deal with rage or even boredom. In the new world, since there’s no live birth and everyone belongs to each other, there is no God. There is Ford which is God in a sense but they don’t know who He is. I don’t think that God will be forgotten in the future.
1) One of the biggest conflicts witnessed so far in the first 90 pages of Brave New World by Aldous Huxley is the internal one within the main protagonist, Bernard Marx. Throughout the book, Bernard encounters a violent conflict within himself. He was born different from everyone else, and he finds himself many times questioning the system, he feels that there is much more to be/accomplish in life than just having sex and playing ‘obstacle golf’. Bernard is conflicted if he should share how he feels with the rest of the world and reveal his thoughts, or if he should just keep his mouth shut because all he really wants is to fit in. He just wants to be accepted among his caste members as an equal, even though he is not on the same par as them physically. Should he follow what he believes is right, or what everyone else believes is and what he has been conditioned to believe is right. Another conflict we see in the book is when Lenina is conflicted whether she should stay with Henry, a man she has been seeing for four months, or see other men for a change. To us, this seems strange, as when you find someone you like, you generally stay with him or her, but in the World State being with someone for too long is frowned upon, after all, “everyone belongs to everyone”, the hypnopaedic phrase drilled into people’s heads at an early age. She doesn’t know it, but maybe deep down she may have some feelings for Henry but doesn’t know how to act on them as feelings of love and attachment to one person is something unheard of. Should she follow her heart, or follow the norm of society.