City of God, by Fernando Meirelles and Pixote, by Hector Bebenco

Imagine a town, a town that is devoid of any warmth and hospitality. It merely stands as a collection of apartments, houses, stores, restaurants, roads; a plethora of buildings all laid out in meticulous detail for a royal return that will never come. Large, vibrant red slogans with painted with the words “SALE,” only to be read by the dusty, stale wind. If you look up, you see a bicycle, a fine layer of dust slowly inching its way over the bike, chained to a rack, waiting for its owner to never return. Beyond the once-busy market is the town’s clock tower, frozen at quarter past four. Is this what our amazing God created this world for? Is this the meaning of every human life? Is the purpose of life for a lively town to be stripped of its skeleton of civilians, to be reduced

After the fall of Rome and the pagan attacks that blamed Christians for it, St. Augustine set out to meet the challenge. In 413 he started the City of God which was completed in 426, twenty-two books later. In his books, St. Augustine divides the human race into two parts, “the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil.”(E &

Peach fuzz below her nose, unibrow perched upon her lower forehead, and thin, black hair; all of these proponents make up Frida Kahlo’s looks, but do not so easily make up her character and symbolic nature. There is much to be said about Frida Kahlo and her spectacular work. Many people see Frida not only as a master artist, which she is, but also a strong woman who never let the struggles of her life get in the way of her dreams. Out of every painting she ever constructed, one of her most captivating paintings was The Dream or El Sueno. This is a beautiful painting where Frida took advantage of her beautiful and masterful painting style to express many different themes and underlying tones. When it comes to this painting, there is a lot to

Odessa is not the glorious town it’s made out to be. Being a town found on one solitary success, Odessa is merely its own nation, detached from the rest of the world. In all truthfulness, it is seen by its own residents as “the worth town on earth” and described as “hell” (32,30). Established in the late 19th century, Odessa was built by education-deprived men working in its labor-driven oil industry. In 1982, Odessa was given “the distinction of having the highest murder rate in the country” (31). The abundance of conservative values and church buildings resembled its individuals, and their faith reflected their faith in its football program. Consequently, the isolated populace of Odessa created its own reputation for its biased, racist, and idolized values. The history of the town was scarce in comparison to the “235-page history that had been written about Permian football” (24).

The geography of the town of Guadelupe from the book Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya is immensely symbolic. After Lupito was murdered at the river, Antonio becomes “afraid of the awful presence of the river, which was the soul of the river” (15). The water conveys the impurity of the town it surrounds and at the same time, it symbolizes the cleansing of nefarious acts and thoughts of the town’s people. The river also illustrates how life continues to flow no matter the case. However, Antonio comprehends that the town’s detrimental avocations will soon reach his family when he reveals to himself that “the innocence which our isolation sheltered could not last forever” (20). Their isolation restrains the corrupt ways of the city and its people.

The buildings and streets in the Place of the Gods are crumbled and destroyed with no trace of the gods. There was also an ominous threat, the Great Burning, which resulted in making the story’s setting look disastrous. The story stays interesting with the careful choice of words the author picks out. For example, “Then I raised my eyes and looked south. It was there, in the red light, and they were too big to be houses.

Brazilian culture is no strange to this alienation of poverty. However, City of God is almost humble in the way it pairs color and lighting to the situation of the slum. There are times where it seems too bright and colorful for anything to go wrong while other times it is so dark that not even the wounds of others can be seen. The motion picture begins in a desolate fashion.

Rio de Janeiro is a huge seaside city in Brazil, famous for its Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, 38m Christ the Redeemer statue at the top of Mt. Corcovado and Sugarloaf, a granite monolith with cable cars to its summit. The city is also known for its sprawling favelas (shanty towns), and its exuberant Carnival festival, featuring parade floats, flamboyant costumes and samba, is considered the world’s largest. With its plentiful beaches, dramatic mountains, and backdrop of samba and bossa nova rhythms, it's easy to fall in love here.

The City of God is based on a love for God, whereas the City of Man is based on love for one’s self. Humanity is divided into each of the cities and this divide in society is the reason behind the weakening of the Roman Empire. Citizens of the City of Man are self-interested and crave the approval of others, are driven by the promise of power, and see their human leader as a figure of strength (St. Augustine, 321). The shallowness of the City of Man is greatly contrasted by the grace and virtue of the City of God. Citizens of the City of God rely solely on God, see God as their strength, and find all of their glory in God. The City of Man is only temporary, while the City of God is eternal. Augustine believed that despite the differences between the City of Man and the City of God, they shared one common desire, and that was the desire for peace. The difference lies in how both cities strive to achieve that peace. The City of Man uses a contradictory method in which they engage in conflict and war, hoping that peace will be the end result. Augustine acknowledges, however, that because citizens of the City of Man have a hunger for power, they are never satisfied with the peace that results from their victories, and the peace that they desire is superficial compared to the citizens of the City of God (St. Augustine, 327-328). Augustine maintains that human

an atmosphere of pain or illness. What I wanted to show was the everyday life of

For the third summary paper, the film being summarized is Butterfly directed by José Luis Cuerda. The film takes place in Galicia (north-western Spain) in the year 1936 as the Spanish civil war is looming over the country. The film follows a boy named Moncho and his teacher Don Gregorio as they develop a close relationship with one another. The film introduces Moncho wide awake in bed while everyone else is asleep. He is excited to go to school for the first time tomorrow and is too tired to sleep because of it. Moncho is introduced as a shy, innocent boy in the beginning of the film. The teacher Don Gregorio is introduced as an innocent, kind teacher who takes Moncho under his wing to teach him about life. The major theme of the film is loss

A city becoming Hellenised meant that the locals had come into contact with the Greeks and knowledge of the Greek culture, language and literature. In conjunction with philosophers, who views of religion, was somewhat outside the normal views, meaning that they challenged the significance of religious views, perhaps in an attempt to undermine these new religions.

The gods are shown to be fair when they are followed yet also very judicial when someone crosses or defies what they say. The people seem to be in a sort of war with the gods due to the fact that the gods do not always have the best plans for everyone. While the people in the city were dying due to a plague that had hit the city, people were calling that the cause was the gods. “There is no clash of brazen shields but our fight is with the War God”. (p.18, line 189-190) This quote from Strophe show how the citizens are feeling about the gods concerning their current situation.

The “City of God” is an eloquently written challenge, from Saint Augustine, for human society to choose which city it wishes to be a part of, the city of God or the city of man. As described by Augustine, the city of God is a metaphorical place where the citizens love, glorify, worship, and praise God. They find their strength and authority through mutual servitude with Yahweh. This city is then compared to the earthly city where the people love themselves, glorify themselves, find strength in themselves, and worship themselves or created things. The earthly city seeks praise from people and strives for domination. These two cities are the crux of Augustine’s novel which entails people to be worthy citizens of the City of Heaven, despite the devastating fall of Rome. Many people questioned whether Christianity was at fault for Rome’s demise, claiming that the pagan gods were angry that Christianity became the dominant religion in Rome, thus the pagan gods were thought to have left, leaving Rome vulnerable to attack. Thereby, Augustine sets out to dispute these beliefs by stating that God initiated all of creation, and in such a grand plan, the fall of Rome is rather insignificant. The more important issue is to choose a life in the city of man or the city of God, of which Augustine marks the parameters with compelling metaphors that beg the reader to choose the everlasting city because it provides the achievement of peace, the achievement of a purposeful ending, and the

Perlman, Janice. Favela Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro. New York: