The Killing Fields is a movie i based on a true story. Sydney Schanberg a reporter for the New york times and he is given the job Cambodian Civil war in 1970 with help of Dith Pran a local interpreter. Also helping is Al Rockoff an American photojournalist . The country is falling apart and the situation becomes extremely dangerous for them . Schanberg and Pran both have the opportunity to be evacuated . Schanberg willingly stay to continue covering. Pran is convinced into staying and stays behind with Schanberg. Shortly after this Schanberg is arrested with a group of western journalist are intimidated by execution.Pran as a great friend and Colleague is able to convince the guards that Schanberg is harmless. Sequently, They make
Hutch, the main character of The Big Field, has played baseball all of his life. He has always played shortstop, the same position that his father dreamed of playing as a professional. “Hutch, had always thought of himself as the captain of any infield he’d ever been a part of” (Lupica 1). Hutch finds himself being demoted to second base because there is another player, Darryl, on his new team that is expected to go pro and also plays shortstop. Hutch struggles because he does not want to play second base and his father does not support him because he does not want baseball to break Hutch’s dreams like it did his own. Hutch is betrayed by his father and Darryl when he finds them practicing together. Hutch has to learn to adjust and eventually becomes friends with Darryl, the up and coming shortstop. He understands that if he wants to win, then he needs to work together with Darryl. His father also comes around and finally gives Hutch his approval. Students should read this book in a high school English classroom because it demonstrates how relationships can be difficult, but teamwork can help to solve many issues.
There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .
Tim O'Brien is confused about the Vietnam War. He is getting drafted into it, but is also protesting it. He gets to boot camp and finds it very difficult to know that he is going off to a country far away from home and fighting a war that he didn't believe was morally right. Before O'Brien gets to Vietnam he visits a military Chaplin about his problem with the war. "O'Brien I am really surprised to hear this. You're a good kid but you are betraying you country when you say these things"(60). This says a lot about O'Brien's views on the Vietnam War. In the reading of the book, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Tim O'Brien explains his struggles in boot camp and when he is a foot soldier in Vietnam.
The Europeans changed the land of the home of the Indians, which they renamed New England. In Changes in the Land, Cronon explains all the different aspects in how the Europeans changed the land. Changing by the culture and organization of the Indians lives, the land itself, including the region’s plants and animals. Cronon states, “The shift from Indian to European dominance in New England entailed important changes well known to historians in the ways these peoples organized their lives, but it also involved fundamental reorganizations less well known to historians in the region’s plant and animal communities,” (Cronon, xv). New England went through human development, environmental and ecological change from the Europeans.
The description of the setting is crucial to the mood the author intends to achieve. James L. Swanson, the author of Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, describes the setting is a way that creates a foreboding mood by foreshadowing and decreases the tension of the mood by using descriptive sensory details.
Is society too egotistical? In Hunters in the Snow, Tobias Wolfe gives an illustration of the selfishness and self-centeredness of humankind through the actions of his characters. The story opens up with three friends going on their habitual hunting routine; their names are Frank, Kenny, and Tub. In the course of the story, there are several moments of tension and arguments that, in essence, exposes the faults of each man: they are all narcissistic. Through his writing in Hunters in the Snow, Wolfe is conveying that the ultimate fault of mankind is egotism and the lack of consideration given to others.
Many people say that the metal of a man is found in his ability to keep his ideals in spite of anything that life can through at you. If a man is found to have done these things he can be called a hero. Through a lifelong need to accept responsibility for all living things, Robert Ross defines his heroism by keeping faith with his ideals despite the betrayal, despair and tragedy he suffers throughout the course of The Wars by Timothy Findley.
Marks, Stephen P. "Elusive Justice For The Victims Of The Khmer Rouge." Journal Of International Affairs 52.2 (1999): 691. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 19 Dec. 2011. .
The Cambodian Genocide started because the Khmer Rouge wanted to create a pure Communist society in Cambodia. In order to do this, they decided to deconstruct the entire country back to its peasant beginnings and eliminate anyone who was above the status of a peasant or was not Cambodian. The Khmer Rouge’s dream of perfect communism ultimately failed, however, because it was impossible for a society to succeed with only one profession. Even rural peasants needed doctors an...
For all our lives we deal with the thought of becoming consumed by the impossible which is also known as the absurd. What creates the absurd is human confrontation with the unnerving silence of the world; that silence representing the idea of death. Since humans try to combat the absurd with meaning it is safe to claim that our lives are absurd without some form of ultimate meaning. This search for an ultimate meaning also allows us to live a meaningful life in spite of this absurdity. Philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Albert Camus strongly believe that both of these claims are undoubtedly truthful and greatly intertwined.
The men and women of "The Hours" view death as an escape from an ordinary lifestyle which lacks anything truly extraordinary or exhilarating. Laura Brown considers death as an alternative to the constraints of her role as a mother and a wife. Both Richard Brown and Virginia Woolf ultimately commit suicide in order to escape their illnesses and their failures to live up to society's expectations. Though Laura does not end her life, she does die symbolically to her family.
In Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder teaches philosophy and it explains basic philosophical ideas better than any other reading book or textbook that I have ever read. The many philosophical lessons of the diversified thinkers of their own time were dexterously understood. The author has a wonderful knack for finding the heart of a concept and placing it on display. For example, he metamorphoses Democritus' atoms into Lego bricks and in a stroke makes the classical conception of the atom dexterously attainable. He relates all the abstract concepts about the world and what is real with straightforward everyday things that everyone can relate to which makes this whole philosophy course manageable. ''The best way of approaching philosophy is to ask a few philosophical questions: How was the world created? Is there any will or meaning behind what happens? Is there a life after death? How can we answer these questions? And most important, how ought we to live?'' (Gaarder, Jostein 15).
In The Rover by Aphra Behn the reader is shown how all a woman could do during the 1600’s in Europe was sell herself through marriage or prostitution through the characters Hellena and Angellica. Both women have different views on love, sex, and marriage. Hellena is a woman who does not want to be controlled by men. It has been determined by her father and brother that she will join a nunnery, which she rejects. Hellena doesn’t want her desires to be controlled and feels she has the right to love if she chooses and who she can love. Hellena can be seen as a modern day free spirit, and Behn uses this as a way to resist the double standard applied to woman and the idealization of what a “proper” woman is. Hellena falls for a man, Willmore, while attending Carnival and it is her wit in the dialogue with Willmore that the reader sees that Hellena is not foolish in knowing how men view and treat their women. Hellena knows that Willmore will not be faithful and uses her virginity as a way for him to marry her because that is her only way of not going into nunnery as she says, “What shall I get? A cradle full of noise and mischief, with a pack of repentance at my back” (pg 590). Hellena takes control of her situation that marriage is a necessity for women and she will not act as a “prostitute” where she will sleep with a man without a marital commitment. Angellica is a foil character to Hellena. While Hellena wants marriage, Angellica vows "nothing but gold shall charm my heart” (pg 564) meaning she has chosen a life of prostitution. It is not until she too falls in love with Willmore that she tries to believe that her lower status won’t matter and his love for her can be above that. However, because she lives a life of prostitution an...
A similarity between the Holocaust and the Cambodian genocide is the social killing technique. This is the perpetrators’ strategy used to eliminate people who could stand up against them by killing the educated and intelligent people and religions of their targets. When the Nazis seized Poland and Slovenia, they tried to murder intelligentsia or deported them into slave labor in Germany, as way to dismantle their enemies’ resources to create opportunities and operate rebellion. Under control of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, they also deliberately adjudicated deaths to whom they believed that had potential to disobey Pol Pot. In the article “ The History Place - Genocide in the 20th Century: Pol Pot in Cambodia 1975-1979”, the author informed,
In "Surfacing," by Margaret Atwood, the unnamed protagonist acquires a radical perception of reality that is developed through an intense psychological journey on the island that served as her childhood home. Truth can be taken from the narrator's viewpoint, but the reader must explore the inner turmoil plaguing her in order to understand the basis of such beliefs. The narrator's perception of reality can be deemed reliable once all of these factors are understood; however, throughout the novel Atwood develops many unseen connections that are essential to such and understanding. Once the reader is able to understand the basis of the narrator's perception of reality, it is then possible to receive and accept Margaret Atwood's stance on the role of women and nature and, thus, discover the underlying meanings of the novel.