Analysis Of Alvin Ailey 's The Water

This is Water, was a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. Ever since this speech has been given it has become well known. Because of the length, it can be hard to read through the speech while trying to understand the whole idea of it. Wallace fills the speech with stories, examples, and vivid ideas while trying to convince these college graduates how to view life in a positive perspective. While this speech is packed full of ideas he manages to give it in a way outside of the norm for commencement speeches. Yet still gets all the information to the graduates and anyone else who listens to it.

Aristotle once theorized, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” The book, “The Color of Water” describes the lives of James and Ruth McBride and their journeys to find this happiness. Both of these characters, among other characters in the book struggled for the majority of their lives with the issues of race. They felt as if they were caught between two different worlds; the world of blacks and the world of whites. These struggles left all of the characters feeling forlorn. In McBride’s memoir it is made clear that in order to find happiness, the characters must first be able to confront and then overcome the racial divisions that were so prominent in their lives.

In David Foster Wallace’s graduation speech, This Is Water, he uses logical and emotional appeals to discuss the importance of critical thinking. Wallace uses the term “conscious” to signal critical thinkers, while those who do not think critically are referred to as “unconscious.” Wallace’s main argument is that a person has the choice to think critically and should do so every day. Wallace’s analysis of consciousness and unconsciousness focusses too heavily on the logical and emotional appeals and ignores the possible ethical arguments that support the development of conscious societies, such as activism. In doing so, Wallace favours the self-interested members of the audience and alienates those who favour altruism, limiting the

Alvin Ailey was an accomplished dancer and choreographer whose African-American heritage influenced his works in the 20th century. His successful dance career has gained international recognition and acclaim thus rendering a significant legacy. Ailey’s background as a dancer and choreographer had many strong influences from social, cultural, economic and political aspects during his early life. His African-American heritage has greatly influenced his works. Alvin was the founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (1958-), galvanized and stabilized an African American presence in theatrical dance. An outstanding performer, choreographer, company director, and mentor to scores of dance artists, Ailey oversaw the growth of his small, pick-up group of seven dancers into a large, carefully managed, internationally-renowned enterprise including several ensembles of dancers and a thriving school in New York City housed in the largest building devoted to dance in the United States. Along the way, Ailey changed the landscape of modern dance by developing new audiences for its performance through a consistent combination of exceptional artistry and wellcoordinated community outreach programs. In all, Ailey invigorated the art of dance with his distinctive creative imagination, his “blood memories” of cultural formations he witnessed as a child-- including the jook joint and the black church --and the strong survivalist ethic he learned as an African American man born in the

The Color of Water, written by James McBride is a non-fiction book that takes place in New York in the 1950’s. James tells his story of struggle of growing up as a mixed white and African American boy and his search to find and understand his own identity. He tells the story of his childhood as well as his mother’s life and what struggles she endured. She grew up Jewish and then conformed to Christianity, then marring and having children with a black man. No matter what colour James and his siblings are his mother still strived to raise them to the best of her ability in a Christ-like manner. In this book James talks explains his struggle and his siblings struggle to attempt to fit into the society. While society had certain negative expectations for James and his family because of their skin colour. No matter what struggles James and his family endured, whether it was poverty, change and transition, the cruelness of society or the struggle of living without a father they

On January 5, 1931, in Rogers, Texas Alvin and Lula Elizabeth Ailey gave birth to Alvin Ailey Jr. An African American choreographer/activist who founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. When Alvin was only less than one year old, his father, a labor, left the family. Being an only child at the age of six, Alvin Jr. moved with his mother to Navasota, Texas.

Alvin Ailey, a well known second generation American choreographer and activist was born in Rogers, Texas on January 5, 1931. Ailey grew up poor in the small Texas town of Navasota. Although he did not have much growing up, it did not stop his drive to succeed. He became inspired by attending black church services and by the music he heard at the local dance hall. Because of this, Ailey left Texas at the young age of 12 and moved to Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles, Ailey excelled in different subjects such as language and athletics. He became inspired to pursue dancing after seeing the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo perform. In 1949, at the age of 18, he began to study modern dance with Lester Horton and joined Horton’s dance company the following year. Horton became Ailey 's major influence, as he was his mentor that gave him a foundation and technique that allowed him to grow artistically. Even though he developed his own style, he still used Horton’s technique that emphasized a strong fluid torso and ease of movement. In his years to follow, Ailey founded the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York in 1958. Ailey’s dance company became very popular because of its multi-racial modern dance ensemble. Due to his modern, jazz and ethnic dance styles, and extensive world tours, Alvin Ailey became one of the leading figures in the 20th century modern dance, making modern dance popular all over the world. Ailey is a significant artist to me because he paved the way for

James McBride's memoir, The Color of Water, demonstrates a man's search for identity and a sense of self that derives from his multiracial family. His white mother, Ruth's abusive childhood as a Jew led her to search for acceptance in the African American community, where she made her large family from the two men she marries. James defines his identity by truth of his mother's pain and exceptionality, through the family she creates and the life she leaves behind. As a boy, James questions his unique family and color through his confusion of issues of race. Later in his life, as an adolescent, his racial perplexity results in James hiding from his emotions, relying only on the anger he felt against the

Author and sociologist, Dalton Conley, is a Caucasian boy who grows up in a predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhood in the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the 1970’s and 80’s. In his book, Honky, he tells us a unique view through a young boy’s eyes uncovering the way in which individuals are perceived in social reality, and how some groups of people are classified. He also speaks about how some groups get better opportunities and privileges then others. This book is a very powerful autobiography, according to his book, written by, “not your typical middle class white male.” (prologue, p. xiii) He goes on to say that he is middle class, even though his parents didn’t have any money and that he is a white boy, even though he grew up in an inner city housing project where mostly everyone was Black or Hispanic. Dalton speaks about his experience as a white boy exploring his definition of race and class and saying that, “race and class are nothing more than a set of stories we tell ourselves to get through the world, to organize our reality.” (prologue, p. xiv) He describes his childhood as a “social science experiment, Find out what being middle class really means by raising a kid from a so-called good family in a so-called bad neighborhood.” (prologue, p. xiii)

In Crossing the Swamp, Mary Oliver exposes human nature to its simplest state; the passion for life present in the natural world transforms the individual by bringing one closer to the sublime. The spirituality teeming in Oliver’s swamp metaphorically represents hidden beauty within the mundane, as a call for shifted perspective and dignified appreciation permeates the passage.

Throughout A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean emphasizes the relationship between nature, art, and faith. The concise, simple sentence with which he chooses to open his story captures the essence of all one hundred pages: in his family, 'there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing' (1). Reverend Maclean believes that both fly fishing and spiritual belief are 'exact arts,' if such a term can exist without paradox. The Reverend holds the firm conviction that 'all good things ' trout as well as eternal salvation ' come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy' (4). This belief system obviously espouses a view of the world as meticulous and well-ordered:

In the movie, “On The WaterFront”, I would apply the theory of virtue ethics to the problem that Terry faced in corrupt union. According to virtue ethics, “we know what is morally correct because it is what the virtuous person or one who has good characters would do” (module 7). Virtue ethics is different than the theory of utilitarianism and deontologism. The action isn’t judged by its outcome or rule but by a person who acts. Virtue ethics looks deeply into a person’s soul. It looks for a person’s good characteristics. It claims that no matter what you do as long as your are a virtuous person, your action is morally correct. For instance, a honest person is put into a situation where he has to choose either to tell his Mom about his Dad’s affair or not to. He loves both of his parents. He knows his Mom would leave the house if she knew the truth. He nevers wants them to be separated. His Dad will be in big trouble if his secret gets revealed. But, it wouldn’t be fair for Mom staying home and cooking for the family while Dad is happy with another woman. Also, he never hides things from his parents before. Therefore, he decides to tell his Mom the truth despite of the fear of separation and Dad being mad at him. We are not born with innate good character traits. We develop good potential from time to time as we grow. In order to develop virtues, we have to keep practicing them until they become a habit.

On the Waterfront is a classic, award-winning and controversial film. It received eight academy-awards in 1954, including best-picture and director. The director, Eliza Kazan, in collaboration with Budd Schulberg wrote the film’s screenplay. Based on actual dockside events in Hoboken, New Jersey, On the Waterfront is a story of a dock worker who tried to overthrow a corrupt union.

One cannot truly change the world around without first mastering the art of looking beyond oneself and into the outside world. This idea of looking beyond oneself has been the focus of ancient and modern philosophers throughout the world. In “The Is Water”(2005), a commencement address, David Foster Wallace, a modern day philosopher, implies that people generally view the world from a selfish perspective and elaborates on how the world should work to reverse its self-centered ways. Wallace reveals his topic through a series of anecdotes, each highlighting a different way we are focused on ourselves and then providing a way to view each situation from a different perspective. Wallace’s purpose is to point out the faults in thinking only for

The movement to land by plants has been a point of great interest for many researchers. The complexity of the situation is in the characterization of those traits that were most essential to the viability on land, and whether those traits developed prior to terrestrialization or post terrestrialization. This complexity stems from the long branch of phylogeny leading to terrestrialization having an incomplete fossil record due to environmental changes throughout time. The gold standard hypothesis on terrestrialization introduced by Bower is accepted in the scientific community as the explanation for terrestrial plant diversification of plant orders and families. Bower’s hypothesis articulates, “that the evolution of antithetic alternating life cycles was instrumental in adapting to the terrestrial habitat. (Harholt et al., 2016)” In other words the development of the free living sporophyte and gametophyte was critical to a plants ability to live on land. This information if taken only to mean the diversification of land plant orders and families is accepted by most without question, for the alternating life cycle is imperative to suitability of land plants; however, if Bower intended for his hypothesis to be inclusive of the primordial terrestrialization then his hypothesis has encountered some criticism. Stebbins and Hill in 1980 conducted research that concluded with the premise that unicellular charophytes invaded