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The effect of language on stereotypes in media
The effect of language on stereotypes in media
Stereotypes and their effects
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The word “ghost,” is officially defined by Webster’s Dictionary as, “the soul of a dead person thought of as living in an unseen world or as appearing to living people,” but has been know to hold countless other meanings throughout history. In Maxine Kingston’s memoir, Woman Warrior, ghosts are a reoccurring theme and are represented in many different ways, both through the living and the dead. To Kingston, disembodied spirits, forgotten lovers, outcasts, deceased family members, and even things she merely does not understand are some of the many things that have earned the name “ghost.” “ The word “ghost” itself is mentioned time and time again, throughout Woman Warrior and with each mention, a new meaning is given to the word. Because of …show more content…
When she moves to America, her mother calls everyone who is not Chinese a “ghost,” and Kingston catches on to the saying. In an article, Lee writes, “refers to the “foreigners: when they live among the whites. Here” ghosts” mean outsiders for the Chinese” (Lee). By moving to America, Kingston views herself as being surrounded by “white ghosts,” or “gwai-lo’s” constantly throughout her everyday life. She views anything she does not quite understand or anything that frightens her as a “ghost” and because of that, all white people become ghosts in her mind. “By calling (white people) and other people of color “ghosts,” Chinese immigrants tried to claim their legitimate statues and to some extent debased the existence of others”(Lee). Through the appointing of all non-Chinese immigrants as “ghosts,” the Chinese are able to unite as living beings in a world full of the dead. They are able to categorize all unfamiliar races and skin colors that they do not understand as one group termed “ghosts.” In one excerpt, Kingston writes, “America has been full of machines and ghosts- Taxi Ghosts, Bus Ghosts, Police Ghosts, Five and Dime Ghosts. Once upon a time the world was so thick with ghosts, I could hardly breathe” (90-91). With this passage, Kingston describes the white Americans as ghosts. Because they are different from her and have different cultures and do not really interact with her, they are automatically deemed ghosts by her mother, and therefore accepted as ghosts to Kingston herself. She is living in a world full of ghosts, and it is absolutely terrifying for her. Although these ghosts are indeed alive, they are every bit as scary to her as the dead ones that haunt her through her mother’s stories. In a strange and terrifying new world, Kingston categorizes the things that scare and haunt her, under one word:
The definition of the “ghost” is a shadow which wandering among or haunting other people. The villagers called her aunt a ghost because they are scared of her behavior. The life that they know had been attacked. Kingston uses the harsh responses of the villagers indirectly exposes her aunt ‘s challenge to the society.
Ghost- a vision of a dead person that is believed to appear or become visible to the living as a vague image. There have been many cases in reality where one sees the ghost of their deceased loved ones or encounter some sort of paranormal activity in their life. “Proof” by David Auburn plays around with the “Ghost story” in his play to represent identity, memory of Catherine.
Like all the best ghost stories, this begins with the most innocuous of introductions: “…life is complicated”, a quote by Patricia Williams that Gordon will remind us repeatedly is “the most important theoretical statement of our time” (3). What obscures, obfuscates, thwarts and yes, haunts us and our work, she argues, is not what is seen but what isn’t, the notable absences out of the corner of our trained eye, those ghosts who may be invisible (especially to the discourse) yet still exact attention from their hidden presence. Perhaps anticipating the confusion of my book’s previous reader, Gordon patiently (and poetically) expands on her conceptualization – ghosts are those whom, through the “complicated relationship between reality and its mode of production” (11) have been relegated to that void between the s...
It’s rude to ask someone what they are. If you really must now, I’m a ghost and I think I’ve been here long enough to not be patronized by someone who isn’t even supposed to be able to see me!” The words rushed from her mouth like a waterfall, she has never had to deal with a situation like this before and it was very unnerving. After Rebecca had some time to soak in the ghost’s nervous rambling she raised an eyebrow. Ghosts? Those aren’t even real. They’re just some made up monster to scare kids with on Halloween night. But maybe… This is a ghost, and for her whole life when she was being skeptic towards ghosts even being a possibility while one was right
...in the story--she believes she saw a ghost. This allowed her to tell the story confidently and seriously, making the events very convincing. She also spoke slowly and thoughtfully, as though she was reliving the entire experience. This behavior supports the social implications of the story, showing that the teller herself held the fear of being alone and of darkness. She also spoke of the soldier’s image respectfully, while admitting to a fear of the apparition. Overall, the performance of the tale ultimately made it a ghost story while supporting its connection with societal ideas.
The word “ghost” originates from the Aged English word “gast,” and its synonyms are “soul, spirit [good or bad spirit], existence, breath,” and “demon” (etymonline.com). In the book, The Woman Warrior, that is, ironically, subtitled as Memoirs of a Girlhood Amid Ghosts, the author, Maxine Hong Kingston, uses the word “ghost” as a metaphor to typify her confusion concerning discovering a difference amid reality and unreality – the difference that divides her American present that prefers and her Chinese past that her mother, Valiant Orchid, filters into her mind across talk-stories that steadily daunt her to cross her established bounds. Ghosts, in the book, change reliant on point of view. Anybody whose deeds deviates from what is satisfactory in one area is a ghost according to the associates of that society. To Chinese people, like Valiant Orchid, Americans are ghosts. On the supplementary hand, Chinese are ghosts according to Chinese-Americans (including Kingston, who finds her past loaded alongside frightening Chinese ghosts). For Kingston, Ghosts, however, are not always scary; in fact, a little of them enthuse...
ghost come back to life, a random woman who came to fulfill the needs. of the protagonists, and the view of, does it really matter? These possibilities will be discussed throughout the duration of this essay. and it will be left to you to decide what you think. In the support of Beloved actually being the baby ghost re-born, you could use the fact.
A ghost attack had never killed anyone before, but due to recent events, it came frighteningly close. All of Amity Park had watched with grievous anticipation as Phantom painstakingly resuscitated the frail form of William Lancer after he had been thrown into a live power-line while trying to protect two of his students. The bald man lay sprawled across the asphalt, slowly losing signs of life.
In the novel Anil’s Ghost by Micheal Ondaatje, characters develop deep relationships and unveil dramatic secrets through a series of traumatic events. Anil’s Ghost is set in a time of political conflict in Sri Lanka, revealing unfolding mysteries, murders, and never-ending brutality. Each character uncovers the truth about one another, taking pieces of his or her own life, to reflect upon various hardships.
...e will be lost as sudden lightning or as wind. And yet the ghost of her remains reflected with the metal gone, a shadow as of shifting leaves at moonrise or at early dawn. A kind of rapture never quite possessed again, however long the heart lays siege upon a ghost recaptured in a web of song – Tennessee Williams” (Hoare).
It is difficult to put into words the ideas of ghosts that Derrida develops in his book Specters of Marx. If we were to make a definition of what a ghost is, we could say that the ghost is a thing, an entity which status in the one of neither being nor not being. A ghost is not a substance, the idea of the ghost involves those who are no longer present or those who haven't been born yet. Those who are not presently living.
“Ghost, according to tradition, is the spirit of a dead person that returns to the living world. “ (World Book Encyclopedia 2011, 182) There are two separate and distinct types of Ghosts. The first type of Ghost is the typical “Halloween ghost”. This ghost is also referred to as the “Folklore Society’s ghost”. The Folklore Society ghost appears as a shadowy figure in a long trailing robe. It often looks like something straight out of a Hollywood picture.
Before I get to her story, I should probably explain the difference between ghosts and spirits and to do that I went to books I own by Sylvia Brown. In Sylvia’s book The Other Side and Back ghosts were explained as people who do not realize they are dead. Ghosts are earthbound because they either committed suicide, have regrets of their mistakes they made, feel the need to stay behind for loved ones or they just died so quickly that they have not realized the truth.
The ghost that has been haunted Mrs. Alving for a very long time is the ghost tradition and of her duty. Nonetheless, it’s seem as if her duty has shaped her character for good. “I had my little boy, and I bore it for him…”(Ibsen, 1881, p...
In Ama Ata Aidoo’s play The Dilemma of a Ghost, the audience sees the difficulty the modern American woman Eulalie faces when confronted with the traditional African taboos and culture. Aidoo writes of the idea of abandoning a piece of oneself in order to be socially acceptable within the society, or face being labeled as “unadaptable,” as Eulalie struggles with throughout the story. Shown to be a complex and difficult task, the question of assimilation rises as the audience sees the battle between keeping one’s own values, or changing to become socially acceptable in an unfamiliar society, as the play progresses from negative instances of cultural exchanges to finally accepting one another in the end.