Analysis Of ' The Precession Of Simulacra '

He served the Haitian President François “Papa Doc” Duvalier who won the presidency in 1957 until 1971 (Smith 1). The Tonton Macoutes terrorized the nation through oppressive schemes such as “spying, beatings, [and] executions” (Collins 130). Both of the historical frames mentioned display power against the powerless. The terms “post memory” and “trauma theory” are reference to the complicated structure of memory that moves through generations while disturbing individuals that do not have exposure to the original event and are therefore “possessed by a history they had never lived” (Epstein 3). Literature helps readers to understand the multigenerational impact of traumatic events like the Holocaust and the outcome of forceful militants like the Tonton Macoutes. In “Book of the Dead” by Edwidge Danticat and “Cattle Car Complex” by Thane Rosenbaum, the main characters Adam and Ka reveal that though never experiencing trauma directly, post trauma impacts their imagination, identity and personal relationships. The significance of post-memory demonstrates the profound consequences of wrongdoing and error in political

"My own personal story can't be told, even in this abbreviated version, without going back long before my own birth on September 12, 1944, back to 1890 and to 1876 and to 1851 and, yes, all the way back through all the other calamitous dates in the relations between the red men and white, back to that darkest day of all in human history: October 12, 1492, when our Great Sorrow began" (Peltier, 50).

“...you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired sayings of Our Ford’s: History is bunk” (Huxley 34).

In her Fire in a Canebrake, Laura Wexler describes an important event in mid-twentieth century American race relations, long ago relegated to the closet of American consciousness. In so doing, Wexler not only skillfully describes the event—the Moore’s Ford lynching of 1946—but incorporates it into our understanding of the present world and past by retaining the complexities of doubt and deception that surrounded the event when it occurred, and which still confound it in historical records. By skillfully navigating these currents of deceit, too, Wexler is not only able to portray them to the reader in full form, but also historicize this muddled record in the context of certain larger historical truths. In this fashion, and by refusing to

Julia is described as “a woman… only partly attached to the world,” due to the intense surveillance and interrogations by the Stasi. Each character strongly suggests that these ‘ordinary people’ were indeed victims, powerless under the control of the Stasi.

" The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices...to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill...and suspicion can destroy...and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own -- for the children and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is...that these things cannot be confined...to the Twilight Zone."

Coates provides clarification by comparative speech by saying, “Disembodiment is a kind of terrorism, and the threat of it alters the orbit of all our lives and, like terrorism, this distortion is intentional” (114). With this declaration, Coates tells his son that the acts of disembodiment they face, such as white on black police violence, is as intentional and sinister as intentional acts of

Written in a brilliant way, Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man” captures the attention of the reader for its multi-layered perfection. The novel focuses an African American living in Harlem, New York. The novelist does not name his protagonist for a couple of reasons. One reason is to show his confusion of personal identity and the other to show he is “invisible”. Thus he becomes every Black American who is in search of their own identity. He is a true representative of the black community in America who is socially and psychologically dominated everywhere. The narrator is invisible to others because he is seen by the stereotypes rather than his true identity. He takes on several identities to find acceptance from his peers, but eventually

. . other agencies . . . [that] were involved” (307), especially paranoia regarding Islamist terrorists from the 9/11 attack, resulted in the systematic search to incarcerate Muslims like Zeitoun. As a result, when Zeitoun is about to enter Camp Greyhound and questions a passing soldier why he and his friends have been arrested, the soldier replies, “‘You guys are Al Qaeda’” (212), concurring with the MSSTs’ purpose of apprehending potential members of major terrorist groups. Obviously, this is not a rational reason for an arrest, as the men have done nothing illegal. Eggers uses this appeal to authority (through the quote of a soldier actively participating in the situation) to underline just how much more of a role race and religion play in Hurricane Katrina’s law enforcement than actual criminal behavior. Zeitoun’s only “crime” is being Arab and believing in Allah in a time when Islamophobia is rampant, reasons that do not justify the mistreatment he suffers during the next couple of weeks as a supposed “terrorist.” Therefore, through the inclusion of credible evidence and quotes, Eggers successfully harnesses logos to affirm the unmerited racial and religious injustices that Zeitoun faces during and after his arrest, simply because he is a Middle Eastern, Muslim man.

This story was not only riveting, but also one that kept me on my heels for almost the entire time that I was reading it. Stephen B. Oates, a prize-winning author of thirteen books and more then seventy articles, is currently a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Some of his best novels have been 'With Malice Toward None: The Life of Abraham Lincoln, '; 'Let the Trumpet Sound: The Life of Martin Luther King. Jr., '; and 'Rip Ford 's Texas. '; His writing is riveting as well as courageous. His willingness to get to such length to capture the mind of the reader and hold them in suspense has earned him several awards throughout his lustrous career. Some of the awards that Oates has received are the Christopher Award and the Barondess/Lincoln Award of the New York Civil War Round Table. His work has gained worldwide notoriety and is currently translated in four different languages: French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese.

While most fictional characters are given a voice with which to express themselves, that voice usually does not stray beyond their realm of fiction and therefore is restricted from the power of the real world. The imaginary black man that Susan Smith falsely claimed had abducted her children in 1994, however, existed in reality in the minds of the American public for nine days until the truth surfaced about her infanticide. Cornelius Eady’s poetry cycle, Brutal Imagination, serves to give that imaginary black man (hereafter referred to as Zero), a voice that draws power from his simultaneous existence in both the real and fictional realms.

The Killer Angels was published in 1974 and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1975. The author, Michael Shaara, was teaching at Florida State University and writing many science fiction and other subjects of stories at the same time. After publishing many science fiction stories and boxing subject novel, The Broken Place, he chose a different subject to work on, which was history about Gettysburg. He did research on first-person memories, diaries and letters, and spent seven years to finish The Killer Angels. The following review will include some main arguments of this book along with sources and evidence.

Mark Twain indicated that numerous instances within history demonstrate comparable conditions and consequences. More specifically, Twain stated that “history does not repeat itself, but it rhymes.” Occurrences, cultural values, or challenges emerge within another period with contrasting characteristics. These conditions contain similarities within various periods, which involve the Industrial Revolution, the early twentieth century, or the Second World War. Individuals within Only What We Could Carry: The Japanese American Internment Experience and the Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves encountered comparable circumstances. Although their narratives originate from two particular periods, these individuals encountered

What he seems to be saying in this extraordinary novel is not only that the 1911 revolution has come to a dead end, but also (and more important) that, given man’s nature, Marxist solutions are facing the same blank wall. He proposes an existentialist way out, but his sense of courage is greater than his suggested submission to man’s apparent destiny. (Adams)

In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, we are presented with an unnamed narrator whose values and potentials are invisible to the world around him. Throughout the entirety of the novel, we see the unnamed narrator, also known as the Invisible Man, struggle in an attempt to uncover his identity buried beneath African American oppression and an aggregation of deception. Ellison shows us how lies and deceit may serve as a grave but invaluable obstacle to one’s journey to find their identity. Through the use of imagery, symbols, and motifs of blindness along with invisibility, Ellison portrays the undeniable obstacle that deception plays in one’s ability to establish their identity along with the necessity of it.