Making History
by
Stephen Fry
Making History is a novel by Stephen Fry, who was born in Hampstead, London on Saturday, August 24, 1957 as the son of Alan and Marianne Fry. Except other books such as The Hippopotamus Fry also wrote some plays(e.g. Latin! in 1979) and films and the musical Me & My Girl. He also worked as an actor in the famous BBC series Blackadder.
Making History was first published in the United Kingdom in 1996 by Hutchinson. The book tells a fantasy-science fiction-time travelling story about a student named Michael Young who wants to eliminate the holocaust from the history books by preventing Adolf Hitler from being born. The book itself is divided into two books (in the first book every chapter title starts with "Making-", in the second every chapter title ends with "-History").
The story begins in Michael Young's house in Cambridge. Michael is an aspiring history student who just finished his doctoral thesis (he calls it Das Meisterwerk) about Hitler's roots. Because he's late for his lecture and his girlfriend Jane took their Renault he hurries to the university. In his pigeon-hole there he discovers a package that is supposed for Leo Zuckermann, he is willing to hand it over himself and gets to know him when the pages of his Meisterwerk where blown away by the wind and he helps him to collect them. They arrange to meet again in Leo Zuckermann's room the same day. They split and Michael goes on to visit his girlfriend who is also studying at the university but she studies biochemistry. He enters her lab to clear the conflict they had the day before. Their argument is not the important thing about his visit but the discovery of a pill she invented: little orange pill that makes man infertile.
The meeting in Leo Zuckermann's room is a discussion about Michael's interest in Adolf Hitler and leads to Leo's wish to read a copy of Michael's doctoral thesis. The other copy of the Meisterwerk Michael had given to Angus Alexander Hugh Fraser-Stuart (his professor) to read it. It turns out that Mr. Fraser-Stuart calls his thesis "garbage" and "insupportable" because it is partly written like a novel (in fact excerpts from the thesis are printed in the book Making History).
After the disaster with Mr. Fraser-Stuart he visits Zuckermann again who now shows him a fascinating invention of him: a device which one can uses to look into the past.
Killing Lincoln Book Review The mystery of how John Wilkes Booth pulled off the most influential and notorious assassination in history is revealed in Killing Lincoln. The author of this book, Bill O’Reilly, built up the plot of the story through vivid historical details and pieced them together like a thriller. He tries to explain all of what happened on one of the most interesting and sad days in American history. Many conspiracies and Civil War ideals are on full display in the book. I agree with most of O’Reilly’s ideas, but there are some that I am not really sure about because of his point of view, like many of the conspiracy theories.
If a person of authority ordered you inflict a 15 to 400 volt electrical shock on another innocent human being, would you follow your direct orders? That is the question that Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University tested in the 1960’s. Most people would answer “no,” to imposing pain on innocent human beings but Milgram wanted to go further with his study. Writing and Reading across the Curriculum holds a shortened edition of Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” where he displays an eye-opening experiment that tests the true obedience of people under authority figures. He observes that most people go against their natural instinct to never harm innocent humans and obey the extreme and dangerous instructions of authority figures. Milgram is well aware of his audience and organization throughout his article, uses quotes directly from his experiment and connects his research with a real world example to make his article as effective as possible.
Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson, is a story written in the first person about a young girl named Melinda Sordino. The title of the book, Speak, is ironically based on the fact that Melinda chooses not to speak. The book is written in the form of a monologue in the mind of Melinda, a teenage introvert. This story depicts the story of a very miserable freshman year of high school. Although there are several people in her high school, Melinda secludes herself from them all. There are several people in her school that used to be her friend in middle school, but not anymore. Not after what she did over the summer. What she did was call the cops on an end of summer party on of her friends was throwing. Although all her classmates think there was no reason to call, only Melinda knows the real reason. Even if they cared to know the real reason, there is no way she could tell them. A personal rape story is not something that flows freely off the tongue. Throughout the story Melinda describes the pain she is going through every day as a result of her rape. The rape of a teenage girl often leads to depression. Melinda is convinced that nobody understands her, nor would they even if they knew what happened that summer. Once a happy girl, Melinda is now depressed and withdrawn from the world. She hardly ever speaks, nor does she do well in school. She bites her lips and her nails until they bleed. Her parents seem to think she is just going through a faze, but little do they know, their daughter has undergone a life changing trauma that will affect her life forever.
Throughout a lifetime, one can run through many different personalities that transform constantly due to experience and growing maturity, whether he or she becomes the quiet, brooding type, or tries out being the wild, party maniac. Richard Yates examines acting and role-playing—recurring themes throughout the ages—in his fictional novel Revolutionary Road. Frank and April Wheeler, a young couple living miserably in suburbia, experience relationship difficulties as their desire to escape grows. Despite their search for something different, the couple’s lack of communication causes their planned move to Europe to fall through. Frank and April Wheeler play roles not only in their individual searches for identity, but also in their search for a healthy couple identity; however, the more the Wheelers hide behind their desired roles, the more they lose sense of their true selves as individuals and as a pair.
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.
Comedy in Our Day Out by Russell In this assignment I am going to look at the ways in which Willy Russell has created humour within the play 'Our Day Out'. I will pay particular attention to the characters, their dialogue and the events that take place Willy Russell was born in a town near Liverpool, he left school at fifteen with no idea what he wanted to do and nothing but an O'level in English. ' Our Day Out', 'Blood Brothers' and 'Educating Rita' are a reflection of Russell's own experience of education.
Cancer affects Hazel Grace, Augustus Waters, and their families deeply, it represents the lost, hope, and surprise of cancer often, but this is not only true in books,it also affects people in real life, parents start to view their kids differently, and the children start to view themselves as nothing but disease, and the culture they once had starts to change. Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace each have their own struggles, Hazel suffers from thyroid cancer and is terminal, Augustus had been cured, but it popped back making his body full of cancer, he as well ending up with terminal cancer. Often organizations and people would give them a little bit more because they are kids who had inevitability of death to look to. They both having to deal with the fact that they never knew what was coming, or if Hazel would lose Augustus first or if Augustus will lose Hazel first, though eventually that fact became obvious. Their families treat them in a way if they were healthy, they wouldn’t be treated in such a way. In real life there are hundreds who suffer cancer, but less who are terminal. Families have to learn how to deal with this, especially when the person is an adolescent. There are point where The Fault in Our Stars shows how different society becomes for those with cancer, and this is true in real life. Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace experiences and cancer let us view the world of cancer for several.
There are many aspects for my mind to conceive while reading the articles why I write by George Orwell and Joan Didion. There are many different factors in triggering an author’s imagination to come up with what they want to write, and why they want to write it. In most writings a purpose is not found before the writer writes, but often found after they decide to start writing.
The movie starts out in a Jewish home, where a Jewish family is celebrating the Sabbath. Candles are lit while songs are sung, and when the Jews leave the house, the candles slowly burn out. The German forces have just defeated the Polish, and now the Jews are being forced out of their homes. They are reporting to the train station where they register their names, and then are shipped off to Krakow. In Krakow the Jews are gathered together in the ghetto where they are forced to live in overcrowded conditions. The Judenrat, a Jewish council, organizes the Jews into working groups according to their abilities. Oskar Schindler, a German business man, visits the ghetto to talk to Itzhak Stern, a Jew who owns a pot-making factory. Oskar and Itzhak make a deal in which Schindler will take over the factory but Stern will be the plant manager. The Jews are once again sorted according to their education and working ability, those who cannot work are sent to extermination camps while some of those who are able to, reported to Schindler’s factory. The Nazi’s decide that all of the Jews should be confined in forced labor camps. Schindler, who is now starting to feel some empathy and responsibility towards his workers, volunteers to confine his workers in his factory.
In the essay “The Man at the River,” written by Dave Eggers is about an American man who does not want to cross the river with his Sudanese friends because of the fear of getting his cut infected.
After the Bomb written by Gloria Miklowitz is a thrilling novel that takes place before, during, and after a bomb which supposedly was sent from Russia by accident. L.A. and surrounding cities are all altered by the disastrous happening.
Stewart Gordon is an expert historian who specializes in Asian history. He is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Michigan and has authored three different books on Asia. Gordon’s When Asia Was The World uses the narratives of several different men to explore The Golden Age of medieval Asia. The fact that this book is based on the travels and experiences of the everyday lives of real people gives the reader a feeling of actually experiencing the history. Gordon’s work reveals to the reader that while the Europeans were trapped in the dark ages, Asia was prosperous, bursting with culture, and widely connected by trade. This book serves to teach readers about the varieties of cultures, social practices, and religions that sprang from and spread out from ancient Asia itself and shows just how far Asia was ahead of the rest of the world
In the essay “Everything Now” Signs of Life in the USA: Readings on Popular Culture for Writers, author Steve McKevitt blames our unhappiness on having everything we need and want, given to us now. While his writing is compelling, he changes his main point as his conclusion doesn’t match his introduction. He uses “want versus need” (145) as a main point, but doesn’t agree what needs or wants are, and uses a psychological theory that is criticized for being simplistic and incomplete. McKevitt’s use of humor later in the essay doesn’t fit with the subject of the article and comes across almost satirical. Ultimately, this essay is ineffective because the author’s main point is inconsistent and poorly conveyed.
"When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked on a line and finds himself unable to swim about freely, he begins with a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape. Often, of course, the situation is too tough for him."
“The Great Dictator”, an elegant speech composed by the magnificent Charlie Chaplin, was a particularly moving one that has gained widespread recognition and praise since it was given back in the 1940s. On the surface, it appears as if Chaplin is directing soldiers to think for themselves and to break away from dictators’ indoctrination, as “dictators free themselves but they enslave the people!” is a line that is reprehended throughout the speech. Further analysis of Chaplin’s speech seems to reveal, however, that he rather wants the soldiers to break away from the deeper aspect of tyranny that has been embedded within them, essentially controlling them. Chaplin wants the audience to take action and think for themselves; to help one another and to save humanity from war using three key rhetorical tools: ethos, organization and pathos.