THE BADDEST DOG IN HARLEM
The fictional short story “The Baddest Dog in Harlem” is written by the African-American writer Walter Dean Myers, and is part of his collection “145th Street”, which was published in 2001. Drawing from his own experiences growing up in Harlem, Myers have often written about the challenging realities that face today's urban youth. The fictional story could easily have been a real story from the ghetto district. The composition is constructed chronologically and takes place at 145th Street in Harlem, a very poor and highly populated area with slums, gangs, crimes and a high rate of unemployment. When the story is set, is not mentioned in the text. Although the story is completely up-to-date, I am convinced that the setting takes place in the 70’s, where both Muhammad Ali and Roberti Duran had their golden days.
First of all, we meet the narrator and his friends, who are sitting around the trail outside of Big Joe’s place, trying to figure out which is the best fighter of all time. Willie Murphy gets everybody mad; he is the kind of guy who thinks that just because he is old it means that he is cleverer than anybody. The debate continues as Mr. Lynch joins the conversation and nominates the grand old champion Jack Johnson. Additionally, we meet Pedro and Tommy, but in general, we do not get much information about the narrators friends, which is quite typical for a short story. The narrator, whose name remains unknown, is a young black man, probably about 20-25 years old. The short story is told in first person narrative by the unnamed main character, which makes it even more interesting and empathetic.
All of a sudden, two police cars pull up right in front of the blokes to interrogate them. The c...
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...ppression of a race
Bruce Springsteen’s song American Skin (41 Shots) was recorded and released in 2001 and is a sarcastic comment on the fatal shooting of Amadou Bailo Diallo in 1999. Amadou was a 23-year-old immigrant and was shot and killed (with 41 shots) by the cops.
The song is obvious in relation to the short story. As long we have weapons on earth, there will never be justice. The line “You can get killed just for living in your American skin” outlines the message – unfortunately, but truly.
As Lena gets her son ready for school, she says “On these streets, Charles, you have got to understand the rules” and continues “promise me that you will always be polite”. Even if you stick to these rules, you cannot necessarily be safe – just like the 145th Street in Harlem. You never know what is going to happen – you have to take care and be aware!
Black Hearts tells the story of a few bad soldiers from 1st platoon, Bravo company of the 1-502nd Infantry Battalion of the 101st Airborne Division, that was plagued with toxic leadership and lack of control over soldiers. The book documents the events that led to the ultimate demise of the soldiers involved in the horrific incident that occurred on March 12, 2006. Four soldiers were arrested in the brutal murder of an Iraqi family, which was a result of the lack of leadership and structure these soldiers received. Black Hearts takes a deep look into what happened to this troubled platoon and what unfortunate events occurred during their deployment.
“To gaze into another person’s face is to do two things: to recognize their humanity and to assert your own” –Aminata Diallo. The Book of Negros was written by Canadian author Lawrence Hill. The Book of Negros is about a young girl named Aminata who is brought to London, England, in 1802, by abolitionists who are petitioning to end the slave trade. As she awaits an audience with King George to speak on her personal experience of being a captured slave, she recounts on paper her life story. Aminata was abducted as an 11-year-old child from her village, Bayo in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea in a coffle—a string of slaves. Aminata Diallo is sent to live as a slave in South Carolina. Despite suffering humiliation and languishing in starvation, fortunately years later, she forges her way to freedom; by following the Slave Triangle: living in Africa to working on a plantation in the southern states and serving the British in the Revolutionary War and registering her name in the historic “Book of Negroes”, which eventually leads her to manor houses of London. “This book, an actual document, provides a short but immensely revealing record of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the United States for resettlement in Nova Scotia, only to find that the haven they sought was steeped in an oppression all of its own” (Haper Collins Canada, 2007). The Slave Triangle had a huge impact on everyone all over the world, and it was significant for Aminata Diallo to follow the slave triangle in The Book of Negros because it teaches the reader about the cruelty of slavery, the process or different stages of the slave triangle and the exploitation of people and goods.
Ann Petry’s The Street is more than a story of racism and poverty in America. This novel is about how the intersectionality of identities limit African-Americans from achieving equality in the dominant race’s society. The protagonist, Lutie Johnson has three barriers dragging her down. She is not only a woman, but a black woman that is also a lower class single mother. In the novel Lutie faces the realities of the American Dream, which for African- Americans is literally just a dream. Lutie also experiences the harsh effects of poverty and how it shapes one’s life.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time is told through the eyes of a fifteen year old boy named Christopher Boone. Christopher has a highly-functioning form of autism which allows him to understand complex mathematical problems, but also leaves him unable to comprehend many simple human emotions. His inability to understand metaphors, distinguish emotions, and his lack of imagination makes it possible to consider Christopher as functioning like a computer rather than functioning as a human being. Throughout the story, Christopher is faced with many challenges which he conquers using the stable and never changing system of mathematics. All of these factors suggest that Christopher does, in fact, function like a computer, but it is apparent early in the story that Christopher, regardless of anything else, is capable of independent thought which separates him from the programmed, dependent world of computers.
This story take place in the town of Castle Rock, Oregon. Most of the book takes place around the main characters neighborhood and the store in which the camera was bought. In the story it is the month of September. The story stars on September 15, of 1997. The way the time period is associated with the main character is that September 15th is his birthday. So the story begins in the setting of a 15 year old boys birthday party. The other main setting that changes the most is the setting of the pictures that the main character takes. This setting is important to the story because it is always changing, and the story revolves around those changes.
Political issues such as the war on terrorism is evoked as an issue throughout the song. American was divided “All across the alien nation” when troops were sent to Iraq to search for weapons of mass destruction. Metaphorical language was used to explore the issue. Audience positioning from techniques indorse concerns with a country divided and positions them to feel the need to cooperate and sort things out other than civil unrest and debate.
This paper seeks to show the comparison and the scrutiny of “"The Mad Trapper"” as a novel and its adaptation as a film. Both as a book and as a film it provides a good fiction which attracts an affluent legacy of folks, fables and myths. Rudy Wiebe’s recent novel The Mad Trapper (1980), the legend, presents a basis for the frame. Further than any distress with chronological events, the writer categorically depicts legendary dimensions to intertwine his fiction into conflict. Weibe’s argument, nevertheless, is not merely involving thermo and Albert Johnson; his contention lies amid the impending desires of self independence and reliability and the problem of multifaceted and distant progress.
In The Negro’s Friend, Claude McKay makes readers visualize the true meaning of salvation and segregation. African Americans were fighting to end segregation, but McKay spoke and said that they were wasting their precious time. McKay wanted African Americans to know that the state was under control by the white supremacy. He said that their cries were useless and didn’t help anything.
Around the world it is acceptable to eat certain animals depending on one’s culture. “The French, who love their dogs, sometimes eat their horses. The Spanish, who loves their horses, sometimes eat their cows. The Indians, who love their cows, sometimes eat their dogs” (Foer 604). “Let Them Eat Dog” is an excerpt from Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. The excerpt explains the many benefits to eating dogs and the taboo behind it. The author also uses humor, imagery and emotional appeal to get across to the reader the logic of eating dogs. One chooses to eat meat based on what the culture deems acceptable. Foer questions why culture deems certain animals acceptable to be eaten, and illustrates why it should be acceptable to eat dogs. The
For this assignment I decided to read the book Code of the Street: decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city by Elijah Anderson. This book is about how inner city people live and try and survive by living with the code of the streets. The code of the streets is basically morals and values that these people have. Most of the time it is the way they need to act to survive. Continuing on within this book review I am going to discuss the main points and arguments that Anderson portrays within the book. The main points that the book has, goes along with the chapters. These points consist of Street and decent families, respect, drugs violence, street crime, decent daddy, the mating game, black inner city grandmother. Now within these points there are a few main arguments that I would like to point out. The first argument is the belief that you will need to accept the street code to get through life. The other one is the belief that people on the street need “juice”. For the rest of this paper we will be looking at each one of main points and arguments by going through each chapter and discussing it.
population is oppressed and must ignore or postpone their dreams. The more dreams are postponed
George Herbert throughout his poem “The Collar” puts his thoughts, feelings and complaints on paper on freedom restrictions. He resolves to break free from the binds fastening him to the life he fights to be free from. In various ways, countless things hold down and confine us from doing certain things daily. All the way through history people fought for the rights that tied them down for what they believed in. Herbert explains in his poem that one requires some restrictions even if we cannot understand the motive behind it.
The first verse of the song begins by comparing the generals of the United States Army to a group of witches who have "evil minds that plot destruction" and act as a "sorcerer of Death's construction." The songwriters are saying that the generals and politicians meet with each other and think of new ways to cause destruction and chaos for nothing but their own amusement. The last part of the first verse says that they only have hatred for mankind and are trying to brainwash citizens of the United States to think that the war is a good cause so there will not be much protesting and opposition.
The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard For this unit, the play which we are studying is "The Real Inspector." Hound" written by Tom Stoppard, an English playwright famous for his clever use of language and ironic political metaphors. Stoppard was associated theatre of the absurd, and often his play referred to the meaninglessness of the human condition. He combined English tradition of the "comedy of manners" (a play that attacks the customs).
In “The House on Mango Street” the author Sandra Cisneros explores the ins and outs of a girl living in a neighborhood of poverty. The main character of the book experiences may things that ultimately shape her into the person she wants to become. Through the book Cisneros explains the experiences out of a person’s control creates a foundation for what they value in life by having Esperanza move houses, go through a traumatic event, and have social normalities forced upon her.