Fall from Innocence in Grendel, Neil Young and Portrait of a Lady According to the Bible, God created man pure and innocent, oblivious to good and evil. The serpent of evil lured them to the tree of knowledge, however, and its fruit proved too much of a temptation. With a bite, their "eyes... were opened," and the course of their lives, and the lives of mankind, were changed (Gen. 6-7, 22). Whether or not one accepts the Christian concept of creation, countless works of art are patterned on this account of the "fall from innocence." The novel Grendel by John Gardner shows us a side of the "beast" the epic Beowulf never considered - the child-like innocence before the brutality. The song "Country Girl" by Neil Young is a subtle commentary on the effect the sexual revolution had upon one woman. In addition, The Portrait of a Lady, a film by Jane Campion, an adaptation of Henry James's novel, shows the downward spiral of a headstrong American girl in the late 1800's. These three distinct pieces cut a swath through the art world, representing an established author, a modern musician, and a feminist filmmaker, yet central to their relevance is one theme: the fall from innocence. Innocence? In Grendel? Grendel is a monster, right? Wrong, in the eyes of John Gardner. Taking the role of the Shaper, Gardner makes us see Grendel as an ostracized person, one so lonely he "relishes the thought of acceptance," even though the idiocy of their society repulses him at times (Milosh 221). He is just a naïve teenager, searching for his role in life. In The Portrait of a Lady (POAL), Isabel is searching as well, traveling where her caprice leads her. "You're drifting off to some great mistake," her friend Henriett... ... middle of paper ... ... Gardner, John. Grendel. Vintage Books, 1989. Kneubuhl, James P. Written interview. 12 April 1998. Milosh, Joseph. "John Gardner's 'Grendel': Sources and Analogues." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Research, 1979. 221-222. Portrait of a Lady, The. Dir. Jane Campion. Gramercy, 1996. The portrait of a lady production notes. [Online] Available http://www.hollywood.com/movies/portrait/text/1.html, April 13, 1998. Strehle, Susan. "John Gardner's Novels: Affirmation and the Alien." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Research, 1979. 218 -219. Travirca, Chet. Written interview. 12 April 1998. Young, Neil. "Country Girl." Perf. Young, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, and Graham Nash. Déjà vu. Atlantic, 1970.
J. Cole is an avid activist for the black community in the United States. He uses his star power to disseminate distinctive and critical social messages to the mass public. It is important to note that race is a socially constructed concept with no scientific basis. The concept suggests a biological difference between ethnicities, yet this conjecture has been proven invalid. Unfortunately, the identification of race has long been established in society’s ideologies through media and social norms. Race also plays a large role in self-identification, public perception, and the normalization of prejudice ideals. O’Shaughnessy and Stadler (2012) agree that the media plays a vital role in the constructions, images, and representations of racial and ethnic differences. Furthermore, the majority of media that is produced by white people is laden with stereotypical jargon and images. This only perpetuates the negative connotation associated with race and creates an
Merrill, Robert. "John Gardner's Grendel and the Interpretation of Modern Fables." American Literature 56.2 (1984): 162-180.
Greenblatt, Stephen, and M. H. Abrams. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. Vol. A. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. Print
Both “ Young Goodman Brown” and “ The Most Dangerous Game” have themes of a loss of innocence, yet each store employs a different way of getting there. The exact meaning of this loss of innocence also differs in each story. In “ Young Goodman Brown”, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, shows us a man that loses his innocent view of the world. By the end he is a man with now hope and no faith. In “ The Most Dangerous Game”, written by Richard Connell, we watch as a man falls from a powerful hunter into a savage murderer.
...cal discourse. It is important that news media are challenged to be fair and accurate. Therefore, racial bias contribute to racist policies, inhuman treatment and indifferent, and murderous attitude that so many black people and other people of color will find themselves as victims. Also, “The Cosby Show” exemplifies that not all black families are poor and uneducated. Although television seems to be more realistic than the shows of the past, we still have a long way to go. It is time for the media stop hanging on to what have been proven to be untrue and outdated stereotypes. The media must stop trying to keep America segregated and racist. Therefore, when watching the news and television shows, viewers must keep in mind that these are just stereotypes. The African-American people and other people of color are really not much different from anyone else.
Grendel is an intelligent monster who is capable of being just as human as anyone else in John Gardner’s novel. Aside from Grendel’s hideous appearance and his emotional outbursts, there was very little that separated him from the rest of the world. Just like the Danes, Grendel was moved by the words that were being spoken out of the Shaper’s mouth. He was moved by the
of racial minorities on prime time television: A replication of the Mastro and Greenberg study a decade later. Retrieved March 11, 2014, from http://pcasacas.org/SiPC/32.2/Monk-Turner_Heiserman_Johnson_Cotton_Jackson.pdf.
According to Poverty & Prejudice: Media and Race, co-authored by Yurii Horton, Raagen Price, and Eric Brown, the media sets the tone for the morals, values and images of our culture. Many whites in American society, some of whom have never encoun...
John Gardner’s Grendel portrays a monster searching for his purpose in life. The characters know the meaning of their lives, but Grendel tries to discover his role and what life has to offer him. Grendel discovers his identity through other characters’ actions and beliefs. In Grendel, John Gardner illustrates the contrasting views of each character to show their view of society and the influence they have on Grendel.
Strehle, Susan. "John Gardner's Novels: Affirmation and the Alien." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Research, 1979. 218 -219.
addition the average American child will witness over 200,000 acts of violence on television including 16,000 murders before the age of 18 (DuRant, 445). Polls show that three-quarters of the public find television entertainment too violent. When asked to select measures that would reduce violent crime “a lot”, Americans chose restrictions on television violence more often than gun control. Media shows too much violence that is corrupting the minds children, future leaders of our society. In a study of population data for various countries sh...
Grendel exhibits human feelings and characteristics in many ways. Although Grendel is a monster “forced into isolation by his bestial appearance and limited imagination” (Butts) he yearns to be a part of society; he craves companionship while he is isolated. With his “ear pressed tight against the timbers [of Hart]” (43), he watches and listens to the humans and what goes on in Hart, the meadhall of King Hrothgar, to feel like he is a part of civilization. He also has feelings in relation to specific humans. Just like the citizens of Denmark, he is extremely affected by the Shaper and his songs that are “aswim in ringing phrases, magnificent, golden, all of them, incredibly, lies” (43). Grendel is profoundly “moved by the power of the Shaper’s poetry” (Butts). Queen Wealtheow shows Grendel the feminine, sweet, and kind side of life. “She had secret wells of joy that overflowed to them all” and her peaceful effect on those around her is a main cause of Grendel’s almost obsessive fascination with her and in turn, drives Grendel to feelings of rage. Grendel’s humanlike feelings show that his personality is similar to that of a human, helping those who read his story to relate to him.
Just as the cell is basic for life, being efficient is the basic factor of all hard workers. This is extremely important, it ties in with the other factors of the hard worker. Bosses look for people who are efficient, people who get the job done the best and fastest way. Efficiency is not only better and faster but it is also cheaper. I worked for a gentleman that always told me "In today’s world it’s better, faster, and cheaper", and I can prove that true today in anything that is done, for example anything that used to be done by people on such as an assembly line was done with human labor, this has now changed to computerized robots. Because it is cheaper to have a robot that only requires a little bit of maintenance now and then compared to a person that has to have benefits, lunch breaks, and other such luxuries.
Tucker, Martin. Moulton’s Library of Literary Criticism. Volume 4. Frederick Ungar Publishing Company. New York. 1967.
Furthermore, television violence causes aggressive behavior in children. Many people believe that children who watch violent television programs exhibit more aggressive behavior than that exhibited by children who do not (Kinnear 23). According to the results of many studies and reports, violence on television can lead to aggressive behavior in children (Langone 50). Also, when television was introduced into a community of children for the first time, researchers observed a rise in the level of physical and verbal aggression among these children (Langone 51). The more television violence viewed by a child, the more aggressive the child is (“Children” 1).