The Zoo Story by Edward Albee
In Edward Albee's play, The Zoo Story, Jerry tells Peter bizarre stories about people he has encountered that influence his shallow and lonely existence, to demonstrate Albee's view that society is unnecessarily consumed by indifference, unkindness, weakness, and emptiness. In an attempt to cause Peter to realize that his own life is filled with emptiness and shallowness, Jerry tells Peter about the lives of some of the people in his boarding house. He talks about the colored queen, the Puerto Rican family, the landlady, and the woman who cries all the time, in hopes of causing Peter to compare the meaninglessness of his life to their lives. In doing this, Jerry hopes Peter will realize that his life can have substance if he so chooses. Jerry is motivated to use his knowledge of the world around him to help Peter because he feels that it is important for him to use his observations to change the life of someone else for the better. He anticipates the vibrant attitude change that will consume Peter when he mentions early into their conversation that he will read about "it" in the papers tomorrow (Albee 15). Jerry is confident that he has what it takes to show Peter the light, and thus begins to tell him "The Zoo Story."
Some of Albee's negative views of society can be seen when Jerry describes the colored queen that lives in his apartment building. The colored queen is overly concerned with his outward appearance. Through Jerry's description of the queen, it becomes obvious that he is quite self-centered and narcissistic. According to Jerry, he usually has his door wide open, as if he is pleading for others to watch him. This is like many people in society who need constant attention in...
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...happy that he does not wallow in his self-pity.
By the finish of the play, it becomes apparent that Jerry is fulfilled enough with his existence, and can die a happy human being. He provokes Peter to the point where he will defend himself for control of the bench. Jerry succeeds in getting Peter to help him kill himself. Jerry impales himself on the knife from Peter's outstretched arm. Jerry kills himself because he is finally content with his existence. He realizes that he has the ability to cause changes in the lives of others, and he realizes that he has a perception of the world around him more acute than most people do. He realizes that by telling Peter about the sad, lonely, empty people from his boarding house, Jerry has caused Peter to have a heightened perception of reality, and therefore can die a happy man because he has fulfilled his life's work.
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
The color yellow describes Daisy’s inner self and Gatsby’s strive for wealth and prosperity. Daisy always
American consumers think of voting as something to be done in a booth when election season comes around. In fact, voting happens with every swipe of a credit card in a supermarket, and with every drive-through window order. Every bite taken in the United States has repercussions that are socially, politically, economically, and morally based. How food is produced and where it comes from is so much more complicated than the picture of the pastured cow on the packaging seen when placing a vote. So what happens when parents are forced to make a vote for their children each and every meal? This is the dilemma that Jonathan Safran Foer is faced with, and what prompted his novel, Eating Animals. Perhaps one of the core issues explored is the American factory farm. Although it is said that factory farms are the best way to produce a large amount of food at an affordable price, I agree with Foer that government subsidized factory farms use taxpayer dollars to exploit animals to feed citizens meat produced in a way that is unsustainable, unhealthy, immoral, and wasteful. Foer also argues for vegetarianism and decreased meat consumption overall, however based on the facts it seems more logical to take baby steps such as encouraging people to buy locally grown or at least family farmed meat, rather than from the big dogs. This will encourage the government to reevaluate the way meat is produced. People eat animals, but they should do so responsibly for their own benefit.
“The Jungle,” written by Upton Sinclair in 1906, describes how the life and challenges of immigrants in the United States affected their emotional and physical state, as well as relationships with others. The working class was contrasted to wealthy and powerful individuals who controlled numerous industries and activities in the community. The world was always divided into these two categories of people, those controlling the world and holding the majority of the power, and those being subjected to them. Sinclair succeeded to show this social gap by using the example of the meatpacking industry. He explained the terrible and unsafe working conditions workers in the US were subjected to and the increasing rate of corruption, which created the feeling of hopelessness among the working class.
Also, the final passage through the tunnel acts as a test of life, revealing if Jerry can uphold the challenges that may come his way as an adult. All three of these locations symbolize something different, but they all help shape Jerry into a new, confident
The English language is one of the most complex languages known to man. Words, sentences, and ideas can be built and misconstrued because of the language’s depth. In the novel Animal Farm, the head pigs in charge, Napoleon, twists words in order to gain control and power over the entire farm. The Manor Farm transforms from the totalitarian rule of Mr. Jones, a mean farmer who feeds his animals meager portions, to Napoleon, a pig that will have you liquidated for a bottle of liquor. Language is used as a means of social control because of its irony, it changes, and it’s illegible by some.
The Significance of Squealer The novel Animal Farm, by George Orwell, is an allegory portraying the dangers of a totalitarian government. It seeks to show how a society where all live completely equal has not been, and cannot be achieved. Orwell, through the use of the character Squealer, shows how propaganda can affect members of a communist society in a negative way. By drawing parallels to events in communist Russia, Orwell’s Animal Farm illustrates how propaganda was used to control the Soviet people by deceiving them, threatening them and keeping them ignorant in an attempt to maintain order.
In the early 1900's life for America's new Chicago immigrant workers in the meat packing industry was explored by Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle. Originally published in 1904 as a serial piece in the socialist newspaper Appeal to Reason, Sinclair's novel was initially found too graphic and shocking by publishing firms and therefore was not published in its complete form until 1906. In this paper, I will focus on the challenges faced by a newly immigrated worker and on what I feel Sinclair's purpose was for this novel.
Intelligent people can and sometimes use propaganda, lies, or deceit to get what they want. This is shown through the characters actions in Animal Farm. These actions are mostly apparent with the pigs, the leaders and head group of the animals on Animal Farm, because of their high intelligence over the rest of the animals.
Few supervisors experience lack of respect and denunciation from workers because of their positions in a company. Supervisors take actions to preserve the image of authority before subordinates and from being ridiculed by their workers, even if the supervisors object these types of actions. The essay "Shooting an Elephant" relates to this situation. The author of this essay is George Orwell. The author talks about his work and personal experience that emphasizes the impact of imperialism at the sociological and psychological stage. This paper shall discuss the Orwell's essay, how the artistic choices shape the facts in the essay, how the relationship between facts and artistry contributed to the essay, technique used, and how the tension between the facts and artistic intention in his thesis relates to the workplace.
Hypocrisy on Animal Farm In George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm, the animals possess many traits that humans portray such as emotional and physical qualities and activities. The novel withholds many examples of hypocrisy among the animals. These acts of hypocrisy originate from the animals hatred for the humans, which eventually transforms them into humans in an animal form and the major downfall of Animal Farm. These acts of hypocrisy are primarily summoned by the pigs in many different fashions including the higher equality, the ban on human characteristics and activity and the basis of “four legs good, two legs bad”. The higher equality of certain animals was a major contribution to the general act of hypocrisy that takes place on Animal Farm.
“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” This simple quote from Animal Farm, which at first seems merely humorous, can provide valuable insight into the values and ideas expressed in the novel. George Orwell uses various language forms and features to convey the ideas that are evident in Animal Farm. Such features include allegory, fable, satire, imagery and characterization. They are used to provide understanding of the purpose of the composition and in doing so convey ideas such as greed, propaganda, utopia, work ethic, betrayal and warnings.
Animal Farm In the book, Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, the animals are raised in rebellion against their human masters in hope for a better life. However, the quote by Lord Acton, a British historian, describes it best: "Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. " This is basically what happens. The pigs realize their intellectual superiority, and use it to their advantage.
In the last couple of paragraphs of Animal Farm by George Orwell, many things happened. The chapter mostly provided an ending for what happened at the Animal Farm years later. In the ending it talked about, how the pigs had suddenly changed their thought system and started walking on two legs like humans. The pigs also get the sheep to say, “Four legs good, two legs better. During the last couple of paragraphs, the pigs and humans were together. They were playing a game of cards, and they were also very drunk. In that section, the animals were watching from far away to see what was going on. The animals notice that something was changing. Something felt very strange to the animals. As they went closer for the second time, the animals witness
As George Orwell teaches readers in his insightful book, Animal Farm, it can be beneficial for a group of oppressed people to overthrow their leader, but if their new leader is given too much power, they may end up being just as cruel and corrupt as their predecessor.