Mazel Tov, Good Fortune, and Everything in Between In the Jewish religion, it is customary for the man at the end of a wedding to break glass. There are many debates apropos the implication of this religious rite, however the most widely accepted interpretation suggests that the ritual of breaking the glass is a metaphor for the fragility of a relationship between man and women; once the fragile, and diaphanous medium cracks, and gives way to the pressures of life, finally shattering, the man and women see how seemingly impossible the arduous task of putting it back together becomes. It is easy crack. It is effortless to break. It is unimaginable to put back together. That is why, at the end of the ceremony, the wedding party yells “Mazel Tov” wishing the couple a path to good fortune in their endeavors which allows them to become closer to god, closer to each other, and closer to the values for which they stand: all in hopes that their glass never shatters. In my experience, I have found nations are rather analogous to humans. What is a nation? A Nation is a people with a strong common bond. A nation is a myriad of relationships across the human spectrum all compiled into one homogenous area by a common bond. A nation is a marriage of people. As so, a nation can shatter as simply as wine glass. Through this series of papers, I wish to contrast Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. Over the past ten years each state has changed its fragile state index score, but in very opposite
Many women find that their mothers have the greatest influence on their lives and the way their strengths and weaknesses come together. In Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club, the lives of four Chinese mothers and their Chinese-American daughters are followed through vignettes about their upbringings and interactions. One of the mothers, An-Mei Hsu, grows up away from her mother who has become the 4th wife of a rich man; An-Mei is forced to live with her grandmother once her mother is banned from the house, but eventually reunites and goes to live in the man’s house with her mother. Her daughter, Rose, has married an American man, Ted, but their marriage begins to end as he files for divorce; Rose becomes depressed and unsure what to do, despite
This was an extraordinary movie that showed the homely small-town moral values through glossy studio production. I really enjoyed this movie. It has very quickly become one of my favorite movies of all times. The characters were very good. I thought this movie to be beautifully told and acted, with Reed, Barrymore, and other ensemble members perfectly cast. The actors were very convincing. George Bailey was an ordinary guy. An example of this was went he was at the train station waiting for his brother, Harry. He said, "Do you know what the three most exciting sounds in the world are?…Hanker chains, plane motors, and train whistles." He appreciated small things like that. I think that Jimmy Stewart played the role of George
Waverly was going to tell Lindo of her and Rich’s engagement, but whenever she mentioned him, Lindo cut her off and began to talk about something else. Waverly was convinced that her mother did not have any good intentions, and that she never saw good in people. Due to this, she was afraid of what her mother will say when she would meet Rich. According to Waverly, she and Rich shared a “pure love”, which she was afraid her mother would poison. Waverly planned to go to Auntie Suyuan’s house with Rich for dinner, knowing that her mother would then invite the two over for dinner to her house, and this would give her mother a chance to get to know and warm up to Rich. However, when they went for dinner, Rich did everything incorrectly- he didn’t understand Chinese customs and made several mistakes that were seen as
Success is extremely coveted in the society, however on the path to success, obstacles will stand in the way. Failure is inevitable and the response of an individual towards these obstacles and the failures in their lives determines whether or not they will have success. Failure gives allowance to learn from mistakes and motivates to do better the next time. The Pursuit of Happyness uses lighting, music and camera angles to give viewers an insight into Chris’ journey through the film demonstrating his resiliency, optimism and loving personality. Filmmaker, Gabriele Muccino, uses the protagonist, Chris’ final triumph to illustrate the significance of failure in achieving success.
In my short analysis of “Cindarella”, understanding the basic concepts of the story was not as easy as I had once predicted. The author Elisabeth Panttaja explains in her essay different views and ideas in the sense that Cinderella is successful because of the magical powers created by her dead mother. The author tells that “It is not suprising . . . that modern criticism of (Cinderella) . . . has been so strangely indifferent to the roles that Cinderella’s mother plays in the story.” This to my knowledge is giving me a different view on how people thought Cinderella acted to the situations that occurred.
"Labyrinthine. The very sound of that word sums it up-as slippery as thought, as perplexing as the truth, as long and convoluted as a life" (Cooper 347). That was how Bernard Cooper ended his insightful and thought-provoking essay "Labyrinthine." Those words haunt me to this very day. Cooper had perfectly described life through the pronunciation of one lone word, "labyrinthine" (630). It was through a trivial infatuation, one that started when he was seven, that Cooper was able to make such a powerful observation. He loved to solve mazes, and he loved to create them even more. He was so fascinated with mazes that it’s no surprise he can so easily come up with an observation like this. This only proves to
The movie, Requiem for a Dream (Selby & Mansell, 2000) exposes the multiple faces of addiction. Addiction can change a person’s identity and therefore, impacts each person differently. This movie explores the life of four addicts who push the boundaries of their own lives leaving the viewer to wonder, how far will they go to use drugs? The focus of this paper is on what addiction looks like for the character, Harry Goldfarb.
The story of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness directed by Gabriele Muccino portrays a family who struggles with finding enough money to pay taxes and afford living expenses. The movie takes a place in San Francisco during the 80s. The two main characters are the father Chris Gardner and his son Christopher, Will Smith and Jaden Smith respectively. Gardner tries to support his family. But every time he attempts to make things better, they always end up worse. Gardner in the story wonders on "how to be happy?" He earns his money by selling the bone density
"Luck" is a short story by the brilliant American novelist Mark Twain. In this story, readers learn about the life of Scoresby, a military hero, through the depiction of a clergyman who was once an instructor in a military academy. This was actually a story within another story. As a matter of fact, an unnamed narrator retells the story he once heard from the clergyman. This story is told in the first person point of view. In the first person point of view, the narrator participates in the
The first chapter of “The Maze Runner” really gets me excited for the rest of the book. I enjoy how it leaves the reader plenty of room to wonder what will happen later in the book. It has an interesting vocabulary that includes some of the slang words that the people of the glade made up. It seems that the plot of the book will quicken very quickly as already there is a lot of foreshadowing hinting toward some unknown beast and a giant maze. I predict that Thomas’s arrival will trigger some sort of issue that he will have to resolve. Just the first chapter has gotten me very excited for the rest of the book.
“Errand into the Maze,” is a captivating and clever piece choreographed by one of the most influential individuals within the dance industry, Martha Graham. “Errand into the Maze” takes it’s audience back into Greek Mythology that portrays a woman, Phaedra, confronting her fears which takes on the form of a man; however, there is more than what meets the eye. She depicts a woman caught within her own emotional maze: the torturing battle of temptation.
The term scatological means to have an interest or preoccupation with the obscene. In his book, Gulliver’s Travels, it is hard to miss the various references that its author, Johnathan Swift, makes concerning bodily functions. Yet, this is more than the bawdy, juvenile toilet humor one would encounter in a cheeky T.V. show but has a literary purpose. Scatology is used to define the literary trope of the grotesque body. Through the realist perspective Swift employs scatology as a means of satire. This invokes Swift’s contemporary politics. He uses it to draw attention to Gulliver’s humanity, balancing out the strangeness of the lands Gulliver visits. Realism in literature, “refers generally to any artistic or literary portrayal of life in a faithful, accurate manner, unclouded by false ideals, literary conventions, or misplaced aesthetic glorification and beautification of the world. It is a theory or tendency in writing to depict events in human life in a matter-of-fact, straightforward manner. It is an attempt to reflect life as it actually is.” Swift uses the daily grotesque and bodily functions to both connect his audience and provoke disgust in them. By employing a blasé attitude when using this device, Swift manages to create a novel that has both realist aesthetic and the fantastical grotesque. He accomplishes this because the grotesque is simply an exaggeration of reality. Swift also creates the character of Gulliver, a realist character
The term developmental state has been widely utilised to describe any state experiencing a period of economic development and improvement in living standards (Pham, 2012). One of the most significant arguments in this scope is the performance of developmental state model. A number of scholars have attempted to investigate this issue and arguments can be divided into three categories. Proponents of state intervention indicate that the state plays an indispensable role in directing economic development and utilising the resources of the country to achieve development goals. On the contrary, those who oppose state-led model argue
Why Nations Fail takes an in depth look into why some countries flourish and become rich powerful nations while other countries are left in or reduced to poverty. Throughout this book review I will discuss major arguments and theories used by the authors and how they directly impact international development, keeping in mind that nations are only as strong as their political and economical systems.
Human beings naturally are social creatures. In order to survive, humans have since been working together. People rely to each other in order to remain alive, whether it be with finding food, building houses, or with finding jobs. There is one famous quote by John Donne that says “No man is an island”. Humans have this need to belong in a group. This need for co-existing is what lead people into forming nations. Nations are groups of people who have a very strong bond of identity; may it be with having the same ethnicity or with having the same interests. One known description of a nation is Benedict Anderson’s (1983) conception of nations as imagined communities. They are imagined “because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion” (Anderson, 1983, p. 15). By belonging in a certain nation or growing up in a certain environment, one develops their own national identity. There are a lot of factors as to how you can identify to a certain nation. Certain factors would be your language, ethnicity, culture, relationship to your land, your religion, spirituality, views with politics, or your land’s geography. As social beings, having a group you identify with has a very great effect on you. However, there also are