Pleasantville Point of View Essay Example for Free

Pleasantville Point of View Essay In Pleasantville, the main two characters were David as Bud and Jennifer as Mary Sue. These two teens are from the 1990s and get taken back to the 1950s sitcom â€Å"Pleasantville†. When they are taken back into time, the two teens took back with them modern day ways and alter the universe in â€Å"Pleasantville†. David and Jennifer didn’t try to stir up things for the town intentionally. David wanted to keep things the same so they can go back home and keep things in â€Å"Pleasantville† pleasant. Jennifer wanted to go back home as but as long as he had to stay there. She wasn’t going to do right like her brother want her to. Jennifer felt differently. She felt like they were too boring for her and wanted to shake things up a little bit. She wanted to bring the 1990s into the 1950s and kind of stirred things up. As time was going by and things started to change day by day; some of the older folks didn’t want the change. They wanted things to stay the way they have always been. The dad played as George was your standard dad that went to work every day and came home and expected to have his wife waiting on him hand and feet with dinner cooked. The mother Betty was your typical mother that got the kids up, fixed breakfast, ironed, had dinner cooked, etc. When David alerted the fireman that there was afire but had to say cat. That was when things started to change. The other teenagers wanted to know how he knew about the fire. They wanted to know what was outside of â€Å"Pleasantville† and for once the books had words and they wanted to know more. They were intrigued to learn new things and wanted to know more. They weren’t afraid to venture out amp; absorb new things and experience life. David was a kid that was shy and afraid. He never went for the things he wanted in life. Back at his school in the 1990s he was afraid to ask out this girl he had a crush on. He stood from afar and watched while another guy was talking to his crush and asked her out instead of him asking. He never built up enough courage to talk to her or anyone else. At school he felt very out of place. He was an outsider. When he was in â€Å"Pleasantville†, he felt at home. He knew the storyline and he knew everything was going to be the same way every day and never change. As the movie went on he tried to keep things just as they were but that was hard because his sister kind of stirred it up a little. As time was passing by, he began to wonder why his color never changed while others around him were changing. His time didn’t come so sudden because he still hasn’t figured out why he was taken back into time. He still hasn’t overcome he fear and lived life yet. The turning point was when he was showing compassion for his mother when she was afraid of being seen in color and when he took up for her when the young men were hounding her for being in color and posing nude just because she was different than they were. Once he took up for his mother in the sitcom. He overcame his fear and for once stood up for himself as well as someone else and didn’t back down. Jennifer was that typical 1990s girl that wanted to be kind of rough, hard, bad, and sleep with a guy to get them to want to be with her. That is what she knew because of how her generation was brought up. So when she gets to â€Å"Pleasantville†, she really wants to go back home and go back to her normal life to go on her date. She doesn’t want to listen to her brother and follow his instructions. She just wants to do her own thing. The town is too boring for her. There is no excitement. So when she finally decides to go out with Skip. She decides to be bad and go to lover’s lane and do more than hold hands. Her and Skip continue to do it for a while and she all of a sudden becomes bored with having sex. When Skip came to her window and wanted to have sex with her. She didn’t want to because she was studying. Now that was a shocker. For once in her life she’s more concerned about school work than a guy. She was so proud that she actually finishes reading a book for the first time in her life. That was her turning point in her life. She put her education first instead of trying to get a guy to like her. She set herself apart from the other females in the sitcom that became how they once were vice versa. The overall message is to believe in you and never lose hope. Don’t let anyone or yourself stop you from doing or becoming anything you want to do. David wasn’t shy or afraid anymore and Jennifer for once cared about herself and didn’t think about her old ways for once. With David learning compassion and bravery; he takes that back home when his mother is back early at home and is feeling down. He comforts his mother and I’m pretty sure he will take everything he has learned with him in his everyday life. Jennifer got her life together and wanted to stay a bit longer to continue to work on herself before she came home. She actually thought about college. Jennifer took control of life and didn’t let anyone influence her decision. Everyone just needs a push or a situation to go through to make their behavior change for the good. Like I once stated was that you should never lose hope and believe in yourself. Go for the gold in life and never back down from a challenge.

Personal Narrative- Converting to Judaism :: Personal Narrative Writing

Personal Narrative- Converting to Judaism One day in grade five, I decided to find myself. Most people are not "lost" when they are eleven years old, but in my own naà ¯ve, inexperienced world, I needed a change. My teacher was the indirect cause of this awakening. She was Jewish and opened our closed WASP-y minds to a whole new world of Judaism. We explored the Jewish holidays, learned about the Holocaust, and watched Fiddler on the Roof. This brief yet fascinating view into the world of another religion captured my attention and compelled me to investigate further. I hungrily searched for books on Judaism and bombarded my teacher and my two classmates who were half-Jewish with questions. I decided, after careful (or so I thought) deliberations, that I wanted to convert to Judaism. I did not (and still do not) know why Judaism intrigued me so. Perhaps their high degree of suffering as a people seemed romantic to me. On the other hand, maybe it had to do with the fact that my religion (as my more Roman friends are quick to point out) does not seem to have any clear and decisive beliefs. It could have been the fact that Jews do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God and are still waiting for the Messiah to appear, which seemed to be a good reason as to why there was so much wrong with the world. Whatever it was, it drew me in and launched me into a world of discovery and discouragement. One Day, after my teacher had taken us to Mount Allison to see Fiddler On The Roof, I sat at the supper table and calmly announced my intention to covert to Judaism. I caught the glance that passed between my parents and was perceptive enough to understand what it meant. "Yeah, right." But my parents are supportive and told me that it was my decision and that they had never forced any particular beliefs onto us and they were not going to start now. So I marched to my room and got out the dictionary. Kosher (ko’shc r), adj. 1. Judaism 2. Fit or allowed to be eaten or used, according to the dietary or ceremonial laws. The next night I went grocery shopping with my father and was excited to see the jar of kosher pickles sitting on the shelf. I do not like pickles and I did not even know why they were kosher, but how could I not take advantage of a wonderful opportunity to prove to my parents that I was serious about converting.

2- Religion Does Not Cause Wars

Religion Causes War. † So often is this sentiment heard in the best sellers from Richard Dawkins to Sam Harris that it has almost become a proverb. It is said so often that people believe it without question. But, in fact, religion does not cause war. If you are an atheist, I ask for your intellectual honesty in evaluating this question. You have every right to believe what you will, but we should all be honest and not sling mud where it is not warranted. Laying war at the feet of religion is just not honest, warranted, fair or accurate. War is people (usually men) fighting, usually for a bit of territory or desired resource.One party wants something another party has. The leader of the first party will use whatever he can to galvanize his entire party, usually connecting to any group identity he can think of, which includes but is not limited to ideology, nationality, ethnicity, class and yes, religion. War is two groups (of any definition, but of which the group designation i s incidental) fighting over something one has and the other wants. Blaming only religion is as incorrect as blaming only ethnic groups, ideologues, persons identifying with a certain country or class struggle.The two most destructive wars in history, World Wars I and II both had nothing to do with religion. WWI was the unfortunate culmination of dangerous levels of Nationalism. In WWII Hitler used nationality and ethnicity to galvanize his group to take what he wanted that others had: the whole of Europe. The millions who died under Communism were under a specifically atheistic ideology that explicitly proscribed religion and decried it as a delusion. All wars in American history from the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, and the World Wars all had absolutely nothing at all to do with religion.Ah, but the major one cited by atheists is the Crusades. Once again though, one group (this time, yes the Christians) galvanized under that group bec ause they wanted something someone else, the Muslims, had. It is important to keep mind two things though 1) that the Christians had been in possession of the land until the Muslims seized in the 700s AD and thought they were just taking it back and 2) that it was not just Christians versus Muslims. Neither Christian nor Muslim leadership was united. It was different bands of Christians versus different Muslim cities and leaders.Several times during the fighting actually, Muslims would ally with Christians against their own Muslim enemies and vice versa. It was not straight Christianity vs. Islam. But regardless, the point is that it was one group wanting something another group had. Yes religion was the galvanizing factor in this case, but it could have easily been something else, like Europeans versus Arabs, and in the actually fighting those identities broke down as people allied with whomever would be most helpful in achieving their ends. Clearly, religion was not the only thing motivating those who fought.Eliminating religion would do nothing to eliminate war. There are so many other group identities which may be/are equally, if not more so, abused that the elimination of one, if even possible, would have no effect on the amount of fighting in this world whatsoever. This whole thing is not to say that group identities are bad, just that they, like anything existing, may be abused. I would not advocate an attempt to dissolve all group ties simply because they are not inherently bad in the least and I do not believe it possible to destroy them at all.They are true, not made up or purely subjective. They are natural, are usually very good and are part of the human condition. We desire to associate, as Aristotle and so many others have acknowledged, we are social creatures. â€Å"Man is a political animal. † Forming groups and identities is just what we do. And those communities become true expressions of self, a group self that has just as much potent ial for affirming true ideas as philosophy or science.Some may say that Europe, particularly France have effectively done away with public religious sentiment, but does not France identity as secular just as strongly as another country identifies as religious? Secularism too is an identity that has just as much potential to encourage war as religion or any other identity. Communism is an all too perfect example of that. In conclusion, there is a distorted story of history floating around in which religion causes everything. This is actually far from the truth.So in closing, here is just a brief list of examples of wars not caused by religion. 1. World War I 2. World War II 3. The Cold War 4. The American Civil War 5. The American Revolution 6. The Hundred Years War in Europe between England and France from 1337 to 1453. It was over a claim to the French throne 7. The Napoleonic Wars 8. The Rwandan Genocide (ethnic) 9. The Peloponnesian Wars between Athens and Sparta in Ancient Greec e (over territory and power) 10. Every Roman battle ever, such as the Punic Wars against Carthage Image Source

Remnants of Hope in Zamyatin’s We and Huxleys Brave New...

Humanity, despite Huxley and Zamyatin illustrating two different types of dystopia where servitude is commonplace, manages to hold on to the remnants of hope which can be found in numerous (and sometimes unexpected) places. Soma, described by Mustapha Mond as ‘euphoric, narcotic, pleasantly hallucinant’, is a drug that took ‘six years [sic] [to be] produced commercially’. It offers the conditioned society hope by giving them a way to always be happy; ‘a gramme of soma’ can cure anything in their eyes, apart from a ‘glum Marx’ . However, in all actuality it doesn’t offer hope but rather gives the illusion of hope. Instead, it controls the population, enslaving them with happiness. In chapter seven, Lenina ‘[feels] in her pocket for†¦show more content†¦In spite of the strict routine which the citizens of One State must follow where an impersonal sex visit must be applied for, I-330 flirts with D-503, looking at ‘[his] hands’ even when he ‘can’t stand people looking at [his] hands’ . The rebellious nature of I-330, who smokes cigarettes and drinks alcohol in discordance with One State and her â⠂¬Ëœslender, sharp, tough, and springy as a whip’ figure contrasts with O-90 ‘everything about her round with the babyish crease on her arm’ who represents everything that One State stands for. Even though O-90 wants to ‘come to [D-503’s] place today and let the blinds down. Today – right this minute’ , ‘she knows as well as [he] does that [their] next Sex Day is the day after tomorrow’ compared to I-330 who casually invites him without an order to come and see her ‘the day after tomorrow in auditorium 12’ . Her unruly behaviour exists as a beacon of hope in the regimented society; freewill does exist. Moreover, she attempts to explain the concept of love to D-503 which exposes him to a more liberal world, ‘that means you love it. You’re afraid of it because it’s stronger than you, you hate it because you’re afraid of it, you love it because you can’t master it. You can only love something that refuses to be mastered’ . However, he is new to the feelings of love so these feelings create confusion and uncertainty, which leads into fear, resulting in hatred