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Recommended: Life in the dust bowl
Chase, I enjoyed Ken Burns’ The Dust Bowl as well, and I believe it was for reasons that you brought up as the music and photos from the era used in its production. While reading your statement about the documentary’s “emotional power” really caught my attention and reminded me of a quote from Siobhan McHugh’s article. In her article, McHugh states that the tone of a person’s voice and the way that they tell their histories is something that a paper transcript cannot convey to its audience (McHugh, 188). Your post on The Dust Bowl documentary and the oral histories used by Burns reminded me of this quote because, as you said, the use of these personal histories is supposed to strike emotion in its audience. With videos, music, and oral history
I believe this is to draw the viewers in and to make them feel as if they were witnessing the event themselves. Denise, I enjoyed your post about how perspectives and oral histories can be used by a director to influence their audience, which suddenly reminded of our discussion board posts on memory in week two. This opened my eyes to a statement that Blackburn made in his article, which he writes that oral history is shaped by the state into the public memory through the views that they support (Blackburn, 44). Depending on what oral histories are used by a historian or director the personal accounts, as you stated, could be used to influence the public’s view on an event. With this and your statement about perspectives, I now realize the importance of listening to multiple oral histories that discuss a single event. By handling history in this manner, I believe that we as the public can form an accurate memory of the past.
The “Dust Bowl Odyssey” presented an initial perspective of why families migrated from drought-ridden, Dust Bowl, areas to California. Edward Carr cautions, “Interpretation plays a necessary part in establishing the facts of history, and because no existing interpretation is wholly objective, on interpretation is a good as another, and the facts of history are in principle not amendable to objective interpretation” (Carr, 1961, p. 31). Historians had to separate the prejudices, assumptions, and beliefs of the times in order to have a more objective reasoning of the migration. The migration had valid evidence that supported against the theory of the Dust Bowl being the only contributor. Rather there were other historical contributions to
Ron Finley, an artist and designer who lives in South Central Los Angeles starts telling the story of his city, which is that he lives in a food desert—an area where healthy food is difficult to obtain—and he relates particular problems like how people are dying of curable diseases. Then he tries to solve the problem of the food desert by starting planting a garden in front of his house, which is the parkway, but the problem is that the parkway is owned by the city. However, the government does not allow planting many fruit trees on the streets. Then he received a citation saying that he needs to remove his garden because somebody complained about his garden. He resists and tried to do everything to not remove his beautiful garden. He joins
William Faulkner's "Barn Burning" contains a character, Sarty, whose individual maturity ultimately initiates a more positive lifestyle than what is provided by his family. Sarty faces much drama throughout the entire short story which builds his personal maturity and allows him to truly evaluate the negative and positive aspects of his life. The dramatic conflict is between Sarty and his father, Abner Snopes, an older man who can be characterized as a 19th century terrorist who has a keen predilection for burning barns.
the South, the time period following the Civil War, the only thing that kept the
William Faulkner’s short story “Barn Burning” describes a typical relationship between wealthy people and poor people during the Civil War.
Steinbeck’s book garnered acclaim both from critics and from the American public. The story struck a chord with the American people because Steinbeck truly captured the angst and heartbreak of those directly impacted by the Dust Bowl disaster. To truly comprehend the havoc the Dust Bowl wreaked, one must first understand how and why the Dust Bowl took place and who it affected the most. The Dust Bowl was the result of a conglomeration of weather, falling crop prices, and government policies. The Dust Bowl, a tragic era lasting from 1930 to 1939, was characterized by blinding dust storms.
At the conclusion of his short story “Barn Burning,” William Faulkner strongly implies that Abner Snopes burns yet another barn, although whether he does or not is never made absolutely clear. In any case, his young son, Sarty, has run to warn the owner of the barn, Major De Spain, about his father’s intentions:
In a young boy’s life, making the morally right choice can be difficult especially when the choice goes against someone that is suppose to be respected, such as a parent. “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner is a coming of age story about a son of a poor and evil sharecropper. Showing the difference between good and evil, Faulkner uses character descriptions and plot, revealing Sarty’s struggles’s as he chooses between making the morally right decision or to be loyal to a dishonest father.
William Faulkner, recognized as one of the greatest writers of all time, once made a speech as he accepted his Nobel prize for writing in which he stated that a great piece of writing should contain the truths of the heart and the conflicts that arise over these truths. These truths were love, honor, pity, pride, compassion and sacrifice. Truly it would be hard to argue that a story without these truths would be considered even a good story let alone a great one. So the question brought forward is whether Faulkner uses his own truths of the heart to make his story "Barn Burning." Clearly the answer to this question is yes; his use of the truths of the heart are prevalent
The Dust Bowl was "the darkest moment in the twentieth-century life of the southern plains," (pg. 4) as described by Donald Worster in his book "The Dust Bowl." It was a time of drought, famine, and poverty that existed in the 1930's. It's cause, as Worster presents in a very thorough manner, was a chain of events that was perpetuated by the basic capitalistic society's "need" for expansion and consumption. Considered by some as one of the worst ecological catastrophes in the history of man, Worster argues that the Dust Bowl was created not by nature's work, but by an American culture that was working exactly the way it was planned. In essence, the Dust Bowl was the effect of a society, which deliberately set out to take all it could from the earth while giving next to nothing back.
One way he creates emotional appeals is by playing music with a very sad feeling with pictures of the events. He was hoping to make the audience feel sorry for the people. At one time during the documentary he showed pictures of the destroyed houses coupled with the music made for a very sad part during the show. There were houses that had moved off of their foundation. Inside the houses were the
However, the sound of country music has went through many transformations. It continues to develop and change, but the romantic themes that have captured the hearts of Americans for almost a century is most likely here to stay. Back in the 1920’s country music played a big influential role in the country’s beginnings. By the 1950’s and 1960’s, country music evolved to be far more modern and surrounded around “rockabilly.” In the 1970’s and 1980’s, we saw the rise of ‘outlaw country’, which was an altogether angrier take on the genre, inspired by an anti-establishment spirit. By this point, country music quickly shifted into ‘country rock’ and ‘country pop’. Finally, in the recent 1990’s and 2000’s, new instrumental distinguished the country music genre from the years past. In my opinion, country music has changed dramatically since the 1920’s. It went from optimistic and based around independence, to songs about societal problems, and class
The Burning Bed, was based on a true story about an abused battered wife. They lived in small town in Ingham County. Francine Hughes went on trial for the death of ex-husband Mikey Hughes. Francine, was a beautiful young woman, that met Mickey at a restaurant one night, that change her life forever. Mickey did not start off abusive he was loving, and fun at one point. Mickey was “wolf in sheep clothing”. He appeared to be gentle and kind, but was a monster.
I felt a since of patriotic country pride while I was there, even though I have never really immersed myself in that genre. I was originally drawn to this event because it was a free concert for me to attend with my friends. Not to mention I got to dress up in a cute dress and some cowboy boots that were still in the box. As the night went on I could see for others, they were there because they loved this music. You could see they were active listeners who knew all the words to the songs as they sung along. In his songs he sings a lot about love, relationships, breakups, hitting rock bottom and living the American dream. These themes can identify with both males and females. Females are more drawn to his music because he is a younger attractive looking man and when he performs he makes it feel like he is singing to you. Men are also attracted to these themes because he sings about events that they can personally relate too. Not to mention in general the songs are very catchy and memorable. You can find yourself singing the lyrics without even realizing what you are singing about. Overall, I feel like this experience would have been different if it was held in a different place and time with different participants. The reason I enjoyed this concert so much was because it was filled with majority of college students, sharing a common interest of having a good time and coming
I think the movie Frost/Nixon is an okay movie that has many positives and negatives. The movie really takes the history of what happened in real life into consideration. To make the movie more dramatic and captivating for a television audience the creators had to tweak some parts of history to make it more exciting. However, even with the tweaks the major and important parts of the real interviews are included in the movie. It pretty much follows what actually happened during the interviews. Therefore, if a US History teacher was teaching their students about the interviews between David Frost and Richard Nixon this movie would be a good choice. However, this movie would not help teach children about what occurred during the Watergate Scandals because in the movie, it is not explicitly