Analysis Of The Book ' Gates Of Fire ' By Steven Pressfield

Gates of Fire is a story about the Spartan way of life and their fight to protect their country. The story is told by a dying Spartan squire named Xeones, who was captured by the Persian army after the battle at Thermopylae. He is telling the story to the Persian king. The story took place around 480 B.C. Xeones began the story in a small town where he grew up called Astakos. He tells of how his town was destroyed and how he was taken in by the Spartans. Eventually he became a servant for a Spartan youth name Alexandros, who was the protégé of Dienekes. Xeones finally became a squire for the Spartan officer Dienekes.

The story provides gritty, graphic detail of life and combat in Fifth Century BC Greece. It fleshes out the history of the actual event at Thermopylae as recorded by Herodotus, and gives the reader a true feel for what it must have been like to fight as a Spartan hoplite in a phalanx against the Persians. Connection between your book and the field of history/social studies This book shows a battle between free men and slaves, many against few, and they both fight for different reasons. King Leonidas of Sparta fights for freedom and his country, on the contrary King Xerxes of Persia fights for individual power and slavery trying to cement his name in the

Throughout the 16th century, as there was a demographic collapse of the indigenous population, there was now a new demand for slave labor in Latin America. In Brazil, the Portuguese needed a large workforce to cultivate sugar plantations. As a result, numerous slaves from Africa were imported to work on large plantation fields. In various plantations, rural slaves experienced harsh working and living conditions. Few slaves had a high life expectancy. Robert Edgar Conrad in “Children of God’s Fire,” shares some primary sources that dealt with the types of environments and conditions many slaves faced and encountered in Brazil. The sources also gave insight into the regulations and economics/business of the slave trade. Conrad states that rural Brazil was “a hell for blacks” (Conrad 54). Many slaves dealt with extremely harsh conditions just to keep the European market in Latin American growing and profitable. This paper will analyze how rural slaves lived and worked on Brazilian sugar plantations.

In Out of This Furnace, author Thomas Bell portrays the historic stories of Slovakian immigrants who migrate to the United States with the dream of becoming a millionaire or trying to escape the oppression in their old country (Bell, 1). The novel illustrates the struggles of three generation of Slovakian immigrants in America enduring poverty, discrimination, exploitation by employers, as well as the development of labor unions. As the story progresses, the novel provides a glimpse of diverse sets of perspectives from Kracha, Mike, and finally Dobie. In examining the character Dobie, his participation in civic labor unions, and in search of his own true identity reveals the more liberal and outspoken new generation of immigrants.

As the fireman, Guy Montag, from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury changes his view on the world, his view on fire changes as well. Throughout the book he encounters many different people who each change him in different ways. Some people convince him that fire is great because of its destruction. It burns away the things that make people unhappy, and changes things. However, as his journey continues, he begins to see fire as an escape. By the end of the book, he realizes that fire does not just take and destroy, but it gives.

The Battle of Thermopylae, which Herodotus recorded in his writing The Histories, was one of the most arduous and notable battles of western history. Herodotus was an extremely significant historian who lived during the 5th century B.C. In this primary source writing, he portrays how Xerxes was superstitious and tyrannical, how the battle informs you about the Spartan culture, how the values of Greek promoted society, and he displayed how significant the Persian invasion was on Greek development, for example, their political and intellectual expansion. The Persian King Xerxes

“A Wall of Fire Rising”, short story written by Edwidge Danticat, presents one man’s desire for the freedom and also, the gap between reality and fantasy which is created by the desire. Two different perspectives of evaluating the life bring the conflict between the Guy and Lili who are parents to the little guy. Throughout the story, the Guy implies that he wants to do something that people will remind of him, but Lili who is opposing to the Guy, tries to settle the Guy down and keep up with the normal life that they are belong to. The Guy is aggressive, adventurous and reckless while Lili is realistic and responsible. The wall of fire is the metaphorical expression of the boundary where divides two different types of people. One

There were many different aspects to the Spartan cultural life which ancient sources and evidence have provided insight and knowledge for our modern societies. These features include art, architecture, writing and literature, and Greek writer’s views of Sparta. The Spartan cultural life also gives us knowledge into other aspects of Spartan life and the society in which they lived.

“Words of Fire,” by Anthony Collings, details the lives of different journalists in regards to free press and covering potentially dangerous stories. Anthony Collings is a former CNN reporter who shifted his focus from reporting to telling the story of journalists who have come under fire in a power struggle between government and free press. Collings puts free press into a spectrum, on one side there is the United States, where the press is largely free, and on the other side there are places like North Korea or China where press is largely restricted by the government. Collings does not focus on these extremes, but rather the places in the middle where there is an ongoing struggle between state power.

Scholars, artists, authors, and filmmakers in recent years have been interested in Herodotus’s depiction of the Battle of Thermopylae, creating several different versions and interpretations of the story across multiple forms of media. The legendary battle of Thermopylae, in 480 B.C.E, demonstrated the strength, courage and bravery of the Spartan Army that went up against the Persians. The Spartans held off the Persian army of Xerxes for two days until their position was flanked by a secret trail. However, in the face of unbeatable odds and with the knowledge of a victory being almost impossible, they fought with the utmost confidence in themselves and proved that the Spartan army was one of the strongest armies in Greece, even though they were eventually defeated. Although, some of the representations of the battle in today’s media do not accurately tell the same story that Herodotus did. Frank Miller and Zack Snyder depict the Battle of Thermopylae with more action and entertainment in their versions to appeal to a larger audience. Thus, by analyzing Herodotus’ description of The Battle of Thermopylae, as well as Miller’s and Snyder’s versions, today’s media have portrayed the original story differently in order to captivate a larger audience.

The book The Spartacus War by Barry Strauss is an in depth look at one of Roman history’s most legendary events, the gladiator revolt led by Spartacus. Spartacus has become a legend, creating a storyline that has inspired many movies and television shows, such as Stanley Kubrick’s epic Spartacus in 1960, starring the legendary Kirk Douglas. Spartacus has inspired a perfect mix of men over time with various backgrounds and beliefs, from Stalin and Marx, to Voltaire, and even to Ronald Reagan. How though, did Spartacus create a massive revolt of slaves that would create a massive problem for the mighty Rome? Strauss attempts to create a chronology of the Spartacus War using his vast knowledge of the Italian landscape, ancient documents, and

This distinctive reputation came about through many different ways. A defeat in battle in Tegea 7th C BC may have initiated their fixated focus on the army. Spartans are famous for the agoge; their ‘education system’. Nearly every healthy male child was selected after strict evaluation through the “ test” put in the wild. These young boys then endured years of systematic rigorous brutality and training until they became men, soldiers that were able to fight in the Spartan wars.

Ilan Stavans says that Juan Rulfo’s book, The Plain in Flames, is best represented by the phrase realismo crudo. Stavans defines this phrase as “a type of realism interested in the rawness of life”, meaning that he characterizes Rulfo’s writing as an unfiltered view into the lives of the average Mexican (Stavans, xi). By writing in this style, Rulfo is able to provide “an image—instead of just a description—of our landscape” as stated by Octavio Paz (xv). To create this image, Rulfo broke his story writing the process down into three separate steps. As paraphrased by Ilan Stavans, the first step “is to create a character”, the second step “is to place him in an environment where he might move around” and the third step “is to discover how the character expresses himself” (xiii). Rulfo was able to repeatedly crafted stories that were filled with high levels of realismo crudo by using that special three-step process. By creating his protagonist, crafting an environment for said protagonist, and allowing the character to express themselves within this environment, Rulfo crafted a three-tier image of post-revolutionary life in Mexico that has never been seen before.

Steven Pressfield's The Gates of Fire is set in the fifth century B.C. in Greece. The story revolves around the famous battle of Thermopylae where three hundred Spartans held off hundreds of thousands of Persians, saving Greece. Pressfield creates a fictional story around the battle where one man, a squire named Xeones, survives to tell the Spartan story of the battle and the events preceding it. Xeones, who is the protagonist, tells his life story to the royal Persian historian while in captivity. This life history of Xeones constitutes the body of the book.

The Spartans lived and breathed war. They learned to fight when they were children, and trained hard for it when they were adults.