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Disability portrayed essay
Disability portrayed essay
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In the story Wonder, there are many themes that could be noticed by a reader. Even though there are many noticeable themes, the theme that stands out to me is beauty is more than what you see on the outside. This story shows many examples of inner beauty being important. A main example of the story’s theme is centered around August being described as deformed. August’s deformities were seen to be unusually bad even to the point that Julian asked August “What about Darth Sidious? Do you like him?” when they were discussing Star Wars. Julian had questioned August about Darth Sidious to implore that he looked like the burnt Sith. Via also explains that people look shocked, sickened, scared, and will stare at August when they first see him. Even
though August as described as looking quite deformed, he has moral character. A noticeable example of August having great kindness is that he won the Henry Ward Beecher Medal, which is given to recognize greatness. In the text Mr. Tushman explains, “Greatness is defined that by having more than average amounts of the qualities that define us as human beings.” August won the award because he exhibited qualities, including courage, kindness, friendship, and character, that made him stand out. Another example of character trumping outer beauty in Wonder is when Jack Will explains that if you lined up all the boys in the 5th grade and asked him which one he’d want to be friends with, he’d say August. Jack Will would say August not because he is the most popular boy in the grade or because he is the best looking boy in the grade, but because of August’s outstanding qualities that make him a marvelous friend. Examples such as August showing great character and being chosen above others, even though he is sometimes thought to look like a monster shows that the moral of the story Wonder is beauty is more than what is on the outside.
As probably the best courtroom dramas of the twentieth century, Inherit the Wind is based on the famous, Scopes Monkey Trial. The play was printed virtually thirty years afterward and takes original authority in varying the true-life elements of the court case. The central conflict of the play is based on the Scopes Monkey Trial itself. Several themes are presented throughout the play, for example when Brady argues for religious values while Drummond argues for natural values and freedom of thought. The definition of a theme is an implicit or recurrent idea. We also see a theme of man versus society, furthermore, Bertram Cates versus the small town of Hillsboro. A third theme is appearance versus reality, or the difference between outward pretext and the basic truth. There are also quite a few symbols all the way through the play. A symbol is something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible. A symbol can also be an image that has multiple interpretations. For instance in Inherit the Wind, the small town mentality concept is greatly represented. The widespread significance of the court case is symbolized by the radio broadcast during the trial. External beauty is also significant when it is symbolized by the means of the rocking horse we learn about from Drummond's childhood. During the decade of the Scopes Monkey Trial, the conflict of evolution and the bible has massive relevance to the municipal and philosophical surroundings.
A Break of Day by Tony Palmer is a compelling written story about a young Australian man called
The Illegal, and Some Great Thing by Lawrence Hill both contain several important themes. To explain, The Illegal features the main character’s loss of innocence, and the racism towards people because of their country of origin, and ethnic background. Next, Some Great Thing includes the themes of racism and prejudice towards not only the protagonist, but also to French Canadians because of the colour of their skin, or the language they speak, and the courage of characters to stand up for what they believe is right.
Human nature is filled with curiosity, imagination, the desire to learn, and constant change. Jeannette Walls, the author of The Glass Castle, has a childhood filled with all of the above, but it is constantly disrupted by greed, drugs, and fear. This memoir takes the reader on a journey through the mind of a maturing girl, who learns to despise the people who she has always loved the most. Always short on cash and food, Jeannette’s dysfunctional family consisting of father, Rex, mother, Rose Mary, brother, Brian, and sisters, Lori and Maureen, is constantly moving from one location to another. Although a humorous tone is used throughout the whole novel, one can observe the difficulty that encompasses the physical challenge
The concept of community is something that has bonded many people over the centuries and something people consciously desire to achieve. The novel Mandragora written by David McRobbie is the story of two parallel events and how one community rose superior to the other. McRobbie has developed a community in the town of Dunarling represented through the characters, setting and themes of the book. This differs to that aboard the ship of Dunarling. Community is represented throughout the book through the four characters Agley, Swith, Smeddum and Snell who work together to end a community, through community aboard the ship of Dunarling and through love a main theme in the novel.
A saying commonly heard is: “Beauty is on the inside.” In the book Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, the main character, Tally, is confronted with the meaning of beauty. All of her life she has grown up thinking she was ugly, because you can only be pretty after your operation on your sixteenth birthday. Tally has lived with the fact that, because she is normal, she is ugly. Tally’s best friend, Peris, was three months older than her. She went to find him in New Pretty Town, but she was not allowed to be there. Because she was still an “ugly,” Tally had to sneak around in a mask to meet Peris. As she sneaks back out of the Mansion, where Peris lives, Tally sets off the fire alarms. She meets a new friend, who is also sneaking out New Pretty Town. Her name is Shay, and they become friends as Shay teaches Tally how to ride a hoverboard. The girls become best friends, and Shay shows Tally
In society, appearance is an important entity on how we live our lives and how others perceive an individual. Appearance also can dictate how we perceive ourselves and it can also guide how our future can formulate, like occupation and personal endeavors. In three works of literature I will illustrate how appearance is an extensive focus, and how appearance is used in the works to display personality and to display how the story will proceed and conclude.
In the play Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, the theme is that every person has the right to think. One example of the theme of this play is Rachel's progression towards independent thinking. In the beginning Rachel fears her father greatly. She says, "I remember feeling this way when I was a little girl. . . .But I was always more frightened of him that I was of falling. It's the same way now" (48-49). However, by the end of the book she has grown away from her father, and now has her own opinions and thoughts. Her new growth and acceptance is shown in her statement: "This is your book, Bert. I've read it. All the way through. I don't want to think that men come from apes and monkeys. But I think that's besides the point" (111). A second example of the theme of Inherit the Wind is shown by the way Drummond acts and how frustrated he becomes when he talks to Brady. In the courtroom, Brady says, "A man is on trial!" (64). Drummond is extremely agitated and replies by saying, "A thinking man! And he is threatened with fine and imprisonment because he chooses to speak what he thinks" (64). After their disagreement Drummond states his opinion, by saying, "I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard-or Colonel Brady-or Charles Darwin-or anyone in this courtroom-or you sir-has the right to think!" (64). The theme becomes more apparent throughout the play by the way Cates stands up for and defends himself. At first, Bert Cates is very unsure of himself and is not sure if what he did was correct. Cates questions Drummond as to whether he should stay with the case or give in.
Many people have different perceptions of suffering. Some of them see sickness and trauma as the main causes of sorrow and anguish in a person’s life. Rarely does a person think that one’s physical appearance can be a cause of sorrow and misery. This is Lucy’s story. She recounts the events of her life in her book Autobiography of a Face. She developed cancer as a young child, and this forced her to undergo surgery and numerous sessions of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She had to endure numerous stares and insults from other people. This was a trying time for the young girl considering what she had to undergo. However, it did not compare to her later years. She spent countless hours in hospitals trying to get the perfect face. She did not want to be different from everyone else. In the end, she realized that the beauty and satisfaction that she was looking for were deeper within her. She could not get what she was looking for in the mirror or in the approval of others. To Lucy, being different from others was worse than the cancer she had. Despite the numerous challenges she faced, Lucy remained resilient.
In the book, ‘The Giver’ by Lois Lowry, the theme’s are probably the most important thing that can be discussed. What are the theme’s, you may ask, well in my opinion, the two major themes are being an individual means knowing when to conform and when to rebel, which basically means if you are independant you know the right time to stay together and when to do something on your own. The other theme is humanity cannot exist without memories and feelings, which basically means memories are forever, you can’t get rid of them, but with memories comes feelings for you can’t feel nothing when riding the rollercoaster, which is life. I’ve decided to develop the theme humanity cannot exist without memories or feelings because I feel that this is pretty
Imagine that we live in a society where you can have a genetically perfect child merely by telling your local geneticist what you want the child to look like, how tall they will be, how smart, how strong, or even how “endowed” they will be. Kind of like ordering the biggest and best burrito you could make from Chipotle. Oh, not to mention that you could make them devoid of genetic diseases or even genetic predispositions such as, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, etc. Now that you are thinking about how great that is, throw this into the mix. What if one’s career, education, social status, economic status, love life, and practically entire life was determined by the genes that your parents picked for you. Gattaca does a beautiful
In Crispin Sartwell’s Six Names of Beauty, he discusses the numerous ideas and meanings behind the word beauty, highlighting how it can be taken in an infinite amount of ways, though the way that Sartwell explained “Yapha”, meaning “to glow or bloom” in Hebrew was the explanation of beauty that was most relevant to me as it speaks of the small moments in life that allow us to experience the overall beauty of the world. Sartwell explains that “…a thing, as it were, sheds or exudes its beauty. Beauty is something the beautiful object emits, like a light: a thing is beautiful in virtue of what it gives” (28). As an artist, specific paintings, like “Starry Night” by Van Gogh, for example, is a piece that has it’s own beauty, that emits beauty from within. As it was said, something is found beautiful because it simply is: it is beautiful, in the way that Van Gogh worked his way along the canvas in rushed, frenzied strokes, yet when the rapid strokes blend together, they ultimately produce a piece that is able to emit its own beauty and its own virtue; it must rely upon nothing else but itself.
Ernest Hemingway uses the various events in Nick Adams life to expose the reader to the themes of youth, loss, and death throughout his novel In Our Time. Youth very often plays its part in war, and since In Our Time relates itself very frequently to war throughout; it is not a surprise that the theme of youthful innocence arises in many of the stories. In “Indian Camp” the youthful innocence is shown in the last sentence of the story: “In the early morning on the lake sitting in the stern of the boat with his father rowing, he felt quite sure that he would never die.” (19) When this sentence and the conversation Nick and his father have before they get on the boat are combined in thought it shows that because of Nicks age at the time that he does not yet understand the concept of death.
August Pullman, from the book,“Wonder”, written by R.J. Palacio, is 10 years old and lives with his mother, father, sister Via, and dog Daisy. August was born with an abnormal face which led him to be made fun of. Because his mother wanted to protect him, she homeschooled him through 4th grade. Now at the age of 10, going into 5th grade, August, otherwise known as Auggie, would be attending public school for the first time. Auggie, has many important traits including his sense of humor, bravery, and kindness.
H. G. Wells uses ethnocentrism as a strong device in the short story ‘The Country of the Blind’ to generate the central conflict and to convey the theme: the perils of that deadly combination of stubbornness and blindness. The people of the country of the blind have been isolated from the outside world for fifteen generations, making it hard for them to easily accept the truth and facts about the real world. An accidental fall while climbing a mountain leaves Nunez stuck in a valley, which turns out to be the country of the blind. Nunez, the seeing protagonist, after discovering the citizens are ‘blind’, expects this to be an adventure and eventually came up with an idea to be the king, since he can ‘see’. The idea of ruling the country of the blind evokes the ethnocentrism within Nunez and the blind people. Both, Nunez and the blind people refuse to accept new beliefs and values at first. But as compilations built up, Nunez accepts the way of life and traditions but not the beliefs.