Fish by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen
In Fish written by Stephen Lundin, Harry Paul, and John Christensen we find a woman who moved to Seattle from Southern California with her husband her two children. This woman Mary Jane Ramirez had everything going for her she was a happy person who had a happy life her family their relationship couldn't get any better. They both had good jobs, jobs that they enjoyed. Then one day, twelve months after they had moved to Seattle Dan her husband was rushed to the hospital with a burst aneurysm he then died. After that incident everything changed for Mary Jane especially when she took an offer to work on the third floor for First Guarantee Financial.
Mary Jane was a woman from California she was married to a man by the name of Dan and they had two children Brad and Stacey. They had to move to Seattle because her husband Dan had gotten a job offer at Microrule. When they moved it wasn't long before when Mary Jane found a job as a supervisor at First Guarantee Financial, this was one of Seattle's largest financial institutions. Everything had been going good for both of them. Then after twelve months of being in Seattle Mary Jane's husband was rushed to the hospital with a burst aneurysm unfortunately he never regained consciousness and then died. It was real tough on Mary Jane but she went on, she had to support her family as a single parent. So three years had gone by when Mary Jane accepted a promotion to move up to the third floor at First Guarantee Financial. The third floor was a place that everyone talked about they basically bad mouthed about them, they did not have a good reputation. They were known as the energy dump. The only reason why Mary Jane was taking this job was because when her husband passed away not all the medical expenses were covered so she had to pay for them and provide for the family. At the same time she wondered what had she gotten into. If she only knew what she had in for her?
When Mary Jane came into the third floor she was the third person to have this job within the last two years. Things did not start out good for her she start noticing the way people worked and she then realized why the third floor had its name.
Personally, I love seafood. I have had the privilege to eat the freshest of fish from both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. I have been able to enjoy many types of fish cooked in many different ways. With that said, I was interested in Paul Greenberg’s, Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food, due to my simple curiosity to what it is that has made fish so popular.
The story by Somerville Ross, “Philippa’s Fox Hunt” was set in Ireland. A recently married couple Mr. and Mrs. Yeates were featured adapting to a new environment. The new place was characterized by new social activities that were not common in their previous residence. They had to learn new skills such as riding horses and hunting. Mr. Yeates who narrated the story described his life after marriage and how events had shaped his marriage. At the very beginning I was able to pick an element of symbolism; a newly married couple will naturally start a new life and similarly in the story the couple ventured into a new society where almost everything was new just in the same way when two people get married to each other.
I was told from a young age the easiest way to get in touch with your cultural heritage is through food. Many good memories and cultural traditions are passed down via food. Food is a way of connecting people to each other, bringing up good memories from the past. Food has a way of healing old wounds and making people happier. You have a sense of pride knowing you are connected to your culture through the use of food. However there are times when you question your cultural food choices, particularly if you haven’t grown up on certain dishes.
The mother gave birth to six daughters. The daughters all got jobs at a seafood restaurant ran by a man from Boston. All of the sisters “made good money on tips” (MacLeod 268) but even though they made a respectable income the mother “was angry [her daughters] should even conceive of working in such a place” (MacLeod 267). The mother does not judge the restaurant on their food or the service but simply that he is an outsider. She didn’t accept their daughter’s gifts because they get their money from that restaurant. If the mother were to accept financial help from the daughters they would have a better lifestyle. The six daughters of the mother later became wives to six young men in big cities such as New York or Montreal. There they are wealthy and “drove expensive cars” (MacLeod271), yet the mother “never accepted the young men” (MacLeod 271) because “They were not of her sea” (MacLeod271). The daughters becoming so wealthy could have been a blessing for the family. They could have had help from the d...
The father, Claude, was a pastor (Frontline Video, 2013). The mother, Jacki, made efforts to find work (Frontline Video, 2013). She spent most of her time helping her husband run the church (Frontline Video, 2013). She seemed confident and strong (Frontline Video, 2013). She inspired people to live to their full potential and enjoy life (Frontline Video, 2013). However, this was just an act (Frontline Video, 2013). Jackie didn’t want anyone to be worried about her or have a negative outlook based on her experience (Frontline Video, 2013). It upset her deeply when she would have to turn for help from others just to get some food to feed her family (Frontline Video,
Unfortunately, however, after years of a happy marriage, Janie accidentally kills her husband during an argument. Her town forces her not only to deal with the grief, but to prove her innocence to a jury. Enduring and overcoming her three husbands and forty years of life experiences, Janie looks within herself to find and use her long hidden, but courageous voice.
When reflecting and writing on Eiseley’s essay and the “magical element”, I balk. I think to myself, “What magic?”, and then put pen to page. I dubiously choose a kiddie pool to draw inspiration from, and unexpectedly, inspiration flows into me. As I sit here in this little 10x30 foot backyard, the sky is filled with the flowing gaseous form of water, dark patches of moist earth speckle the yard, the plants soak up their scattered watering, and the leaves of bushes and trees imbue the space with a sense of dampness from their foliage. As my senses tune into the moisture that surrounds me, I fill Braedon’s artificial pond with water. I stare at the shimmering surface, contemplating Eiseley’s narrative, and the little bit of life’s wellspring caught in Brae’s pool. I see why Eiseley thought the most abundant compound on the earth’s surface is mystical.
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
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.
In Lee Ann Fisher Baron’s “Junk Science,” she claims that the “food industry with the help of federal regulators” sometimes use “[a science that] bypasses [the] system of peer review. Presented directly to the public by…‘experts’ or ‘activists,’ often with little or no supporting evidence, this ‘junk science’ undermines the ability…[for] everyday consumers to make rational decisions” (921). Yet Americans still have a lot of faith in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). According to a 2013 Pew Research study, 65% of Americans are “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” of the FDA. When it comes to what people put in their bodies, the FDA has a moral obligation to be truthful and transparent. The bottom line of the FDA’s myriad of responsibilities is to help protect the health of Americans. Deciding what to eat is a critical part of living healthily, and consumers must be able to trust that this massive government agency is informing them properly of the contents of food. While the FDA does an excellent job in many areas, it has flaws in other areas. One of its flaws is allowing the food industry to print food labels that are deceptive, unclear, or simply not true (known as misbranding). This is quite the hot topic because a Google search for “Should I trust food labels” returns well over 20 million results, many of which are blog posts from online writers begging their readers not to trust food labels. HowStuffWorks, a division of Discovery Communications, published an online article whose author claims that “[the food industry] will put what they want on labels. They know the game….” While the food industry is partially at blame for misbranding, the FDA is allowing it to happen. If a mother tells her children that it is oka...
In the book Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, the author talks about, not only vegetarianism, but reveals to us what actually occurs in the factory farming system. The issue circulating in this book is whether to eat meat or not to eat meat. Foer, however, never tries to convert his reader to become vegetarians but rather to inform them with information so they can respond with better judgment. Eating meat has been a thing that majority of us engage in without question. Which is why among other reasons Foer feels compelled to share his findings about where our meat come from. Throughout the book, he gives vivid accounts of the dreadful conditions factory farmed animals endure on a daily basis. For this reason Foer urges us to take a stand against factory farming, and if we must eat meat then we must adapt humane agricultural methods for meat production.
In "The Rules of the Game," a short story about a young Chinese-American girl, Waverly Jong, embarks journey to become a chess master. Waverly's mother believes she is a key component during this journey. Even though the mother actually has no true role in Waverly's adventure, she continues to believe it is her as the one who is succeeding. This belief is a necessity for Waverly's mother because she has nothing for herself. Waverly's mother has to live through her daughter because of her own lack of success.
In today’s world, everyone has a sense of security that is born from the technological developments that science has given to society. While they may feel safe, there are much larger threats of disaster that people are not prepared for. These include natural disaster and human error. Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales aims to educate the people on how to better protect themselves and prevent death. The novel accomplishes this through sharing personal stories and stories of others who have survived near death experiences. This is an important subject in our culture and its importance is verified by professional reviews. To further express this importance, there are a plethora of popular television shows in pop culture that seek to entertain as well as educate its audience. Although modern technology makes it feel relatively easy to avoid and escape life threatening situations, basic survival skills, like those taught in Deep Survival by Laurence Gonzales, are a useful tool to have in any situation. These thoughts are reflected in qualified book reviews that further show the significance of the subject in today’s society.
In the story "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the stories overall theme. The story is centered on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oiler who is the only character named in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in stormy seas just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning, the men are weak and exhausted. The captain decides that they must try to take the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the surf inevitably turns the boat over and throws the men into the cold sea. As they get closer to land a big wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat turns over and the four men must swim into shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore who help the men out of the water. Strangely, as the cook, captain and correspondent reach the shore safely and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the oiler has drowned after being smashed in the surf by a huge wave. (255-270) “The Open Boat’s” main theme deals with a character’s seemingly insignificant life struggle against nature’s indifference. Crane expresses this theme through a suspenseful tone, creative point of view, and a mix of irony.
“Is There a Text in This Class?” by Stanley Fish, discusses that there can be more than one meaning to a text. One of Fish’s first points was that people usually make assumptions of a meaning based on context and their personal experiences. Context is usually embedded within the language, so people must decode the meaning through how they interpret the context. Fish mentions that people tend to always go with the meaning that is most accessible and that their interpretation of the meanings of a text will be ranked according to the situation.