Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Olivia Shaw Essay -- English Literature

Plot and Sub-Plot A Streetcar Named Desire ======================== The main plot in A Streetcar Named Desire is all based around the character Blanche DuBois and the never-ending downfall of her life. The play opens with Blanche arriving in New Orleans where she has come to find and stay with her sister Stella. Stella lives in an apartment with her controlling husband Stanley, when Blanche sees the apartment which she stays she cannot believe her sister lives in such a place. Blanche and Stella greet each with passion but before long Blanche becomes irritable. Blanche has bad news and tells Stella she has lost they’re old home ‘Belle Reve’ Blanche says to Stella it’s her fault and her leaving was the reason they lost their home. This gets Stella upset so she goes to the bathroom. While she is there Stanley comes home, he gives Blanche a frank stare and they have an awkward conversation, we find out Blanche had a husband who died when they were both very young. Stanley is common and rough compared to Blanche who is delicate. Stanley is a very sexual man and sex is part of what makes him tick. His appraisal of women is frank and straightforward. It becomes obvious that the sexual bond between Stanley and Stella is intense, and that this is what keeps their relationship going. Stella tells Stanley about the loss of ‘Belle Reve’ and Stanley thinks Blanche has profited from this and goes through her things. When Stanley routes through the letters her husband had written this makes Blanche angry and also brings back memories of her past. That night Stanley has his friends round for a poker game and this is where Blanche first meets Mitch they talk about things they have in common and she tells him she is ... ...l ingredients to a play. ‘A play should be about one character’, in A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee used Blanche, the tragic heroin the protagonist he based his play around Blanches character. ‘A play should be set in one place’ Tennessee used New Orleans, with the play begin set in one place this increased the tension, be more intense so more confrontations would occur if there was no where else to escape to. For Blanche’s character New Orleans becomes a trap. Aristotle also said ‘A play should be set over a 24hr period’ Tennessee didn’t use this ingredient in his play because we needed time for Stella’s pregnancy to develop and cause more conflict. We needed to see Blanche and Mitch’s relationship develop and unfold. Also Blanches mental state needed time to deteriorate so we wouldn’t feel so shocked when she was taken away by the nurse and doctor.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Hate Crimes: Matthew Shepard Essay

Wyoming, October 7th 1998. Aaron Kriefels is cycling in a remote rural area when he sees what at first he believes to be a scarecrow tied to a fence. He looks closer and sees not a scarecrow, but a young man badly beaten and close to death. The victims name was Matthew Shepard. On Dec. 1st 1976, Matthew Shepard was born in Casper, Wyoming. He attended elementary school in the states, but after his first year in high school his family moved to Saudi Arabia. He then attended the American School in Switzerland where he was elected as a peer mediator. His friends and peers felt comfortable talking to him and he was someone you came to when you needed advice. He was described by his father as â€Å"an optimistic and accepting young man who had a special gift of relating to almost everyone. He was the type of person who was very approachable and always looked to new challenges. Matthew had a great passion for equality and always stood up for the acceptance of people’s differences. â€Å"[1] In February 1995, during a high school trip to Morocco, Matthew was beaten, robbed, and raped, causing him to withdraw from school. According to his mother, from then on he was prone to experiencing panic attacks and depression. Although this time in his life was extremely difficult, Shepard still graduated in May then attended Catawba College in North Carolina and Casper College in Wyoming, before settling in Denver. Shepard became a first-year political science major at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, and was chosen as the student representative for the Wyoming Environmental Council. Shortly after midnight, on October 7th, 1998 Shepard met two men (Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson) at the Fireside Lounge. He was offered a ride home, but shortly after leaving they robbed, pistol-whipped and tortured him, tying him to a fence leaving him to die. Matthew was left in the freezing cold suffering from his injuries before slipping into a coma. In total, it took 18 hours before he was found and rushed to the hospital. Upon arrival it became apparent that his injuries were too severe and the doctors couldn’t operate. On October 12th, Matthew Shepard died of his injuries, never having woken up from his coma. During the trial, McKinney tried to justify his actions by originally pleading that he and Henderson were driven to temporary insanity by alleged sexual advances by Shepard. I believe this is one of the key factors in understanding why people do what they do when it comes to homosexually based hate crimes. When men ‘check out’ or ‘hit on’ women they believe it is there right. The right to gaze upon a woman’s body is something they genuinely believe is a man’s right. There is no female equivalent to a man’s gaze. It is something that is seen as powerful and socially intimidating, and when the two men in the bar noticed Shepard looking at them it made them believe they were being hit on as if they were women. Both Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson felt they needed to defend not only their masculinity but their heterosexuality. This is very important because, later on in the trial when McKinney states that while in the car Matthew made an apparent sexual advance toward him, instead of backing away McKinney begins hitting Shepard. After feeling like he had been emasculated back at the bar, I bet he was just looking for an excuse to exert power over Matt. Whether he had in fact made sexual advances toward Aaron isn’t the point, the point is that McKinney chose to defend his heterosexuality by literally beating the life out of him and showing him that he had the power. Both McKinney and Henderson were of slight build, but with Matthew being even smaller and only reaching 5’1 it only solidified in the minds of the two men their power of the homosexual man. What happens next is what changed this from a triggered â€Å"Gay Panic Defense† (which is, in my opinion a completely bogus and ridiculous excuse for those who can’t control their fists) to a hate crime and a murder. After severely beating Shepard in the moving truck, Henderson tied him to the fence. Their decision to tie his body up for everyone to see is part of their intensions to make it a public display of what they believe should be private. In an interview for the Laramie Project (a play based on the events of Matthew’s death), McKinney’s girlfriend tells writers about why the two men really decided to invite Matt into their car. After being disgusted at the thought of being hit on by a gay man they go to the bathroom where they plan to put on a gay pretense in order to lead Shepard into their vehicle and rob him. They wanted him to be punished for â€Å"coming onto straight people. † By lifting his body in midair and tethering him to the fence they were aware that someone would find him that way. They didn’t hide or trash or burry the body, they made it a spectacle. But in doing this, you can deduce that this murder wasn’t fully about Matthew Shepard. He was a trigger, he was someone they could take advantage of. They used his body to show not only to Matthew himself, but to Laramie and the surrounding community that they were defending their ‘manhood. ’ And in one of the most brutal ways you can imagine. Hate crimes towards people who are a different sexual orientation then others are more common than people think. There are a lot of organizations that try to help stop these hate crimes but I think that these situations should be in the news more often. People need to be more aware about what they say and what they do because you never know who could be listening. It could be your children who will take what you say as the truth. It could be someone walking near you or even in the same room and be deeply offended by what you say. You never know who you could offend, be it a friend, a co-worker or even a family member. People need to watch what they say because you never know who will be listening. Hate crimes must be stopped and it will take people to take action against it in order to make the world a better place.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Types Of Dwellings Used By Ancient Romans - 773 Words

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