Final Solution by Mahesh Dattani

Nobody fully understands what drives people to undertake a mission, but it often causes people to take many risks. For example, Farah Ahmedi climbed a mountain on a prosthetic leg with a sick mother just to reach freedom. Rikki-Tikki fought for his life to save his family. John Steinbeck eavesdropped on people's conversations just to get material for his book. These stories show different people who had each set a goal for themselves. Ahmedi and Rikki-Tikki fought for their lives to survive and save their loved ones. While Steinbeck traveled to great lengths to write his book. Their goals may be different but they all had set a goal and they all eventually accomplished their goal.

In Larry Lankton’s text, “Beyond the Boundaries” we gradually enter an unknown world that is frightening yet filled with immense beauty for miles. Due to the copper mining industry, a gradual increase of working class men and their families start to migrate to the unknown world with unsteady emotion, yet hope for a prosperous new life. In “Beyond the Boundaries”, Lankton takes us on a journey on how the “world below” transformed the upper peninsula into a functional and accepted new part of the world.

Journal One in The Alternative by Galen Leonhardy, tells the story of a teacher who helps open an alternative school in Kozol Creek, Idaho, and the struggles he faces in attempting to implement a collaborative education process. The author writes of teachers who let students run free through the halls or simply ignored kids because they did not know how to handle them. He also writes of teachers who strive for a more personalized education by learning who their students are and understanding the environment from which they come. I have also dealt with both kinds of teachers in my educational experience, as I was a student of an alternative school. Mr. Lamar, to me, represents what a teacher should be. His personal dedication to making a difference in students’ lives and his willingness to go the extra mile by empowering students to take responsibility for their education changed how I perceived my own education. Mrs. Patton, on the other hand, is a teacher I would much rather forget. Her militarized style of teaching made learning an afterthought to the daily complications we encountered in the classroom. Both Mr. Lamar and Mrs. Patton taught me the importance of being included in your own education.

Although Jess is aware of her religion, she does not feel strongly about it like traditional Sikhs would. A scene which shows Jess’ lack of interest in religion is when she receives her A-level results. Her mother, Mrs Bhamra, is praying to a picture of Guru Nanak - founder of Sikhism – for Jess’ results to be good. A combination of overhead shots and mid shots couples with Jess’ words, ‘Hurry up, mum,’ show that Jess does not really care about her religion. The overhead shots show Mrs Bhamra praying very sincerely while Jess, behind her mother, looks like she really could not care less. The following mid shot shows Jess opening the envelope quickly and roughly with a doubtful expression on her face. This scene shows her awareness but disinterest and disbelief in her religion. Another scene shows that, even though Jess is aware that traditions are a part her life, she does not agree with them. Her football team mate asks her how she can stand having to marry who others want her to. The close up shot immediately next shows her saying, ‘it’s just culture’ with a nonchalant facial expression. The scene indicates that Jess knows the expectation of her to follow the traditions but may not strongly believe in those traditions. Her actions indicate that we should not remain separate from the new environment, but to combine the old and the new.

unprivileged with her home. Her family, on the other hand, tries to escape Mango Street

1. Text 1 “Experts Cite Underlying Causes for UK Riots” is a news report by Al Pessin published on Voice of America website the 10th of August 2011. The report consists of people giving an estimate of the causes for the UK riots. The inhabitants of London believe at first sight the riots are a response in reaction to lack of jobs and cuts in government services following a

The theme of suffering will be talked about throughout this essay. Even though it isn’t the most pleasant topic to talk about, it is part of our lives. The dictionary defines suffering as “The state of undergoing pain, distress, or hardship.” This essay will examine suffering and how it shows up in different printed sources, as well as in my personal life.

The play can be seen as a general statement on the effects that fear and fanaticism can have on human beings and how one person can cause such catastrophe. It

Women have often played an important role in advocating social justice. However, they have rarely been credited for their efforts and actions. Indeed, the research or narratives on social movements too often focus on male experiences. Yet, a gendered approach to social movements is crucial, because women’s experiences differ from men’s, as do their reasons for becoming involved with any type of activism, be it political or social. The movie Salt of the Earth by Michael Wilson (1954) illustrates those differences and emphasizes the importance of understanding the role played by individual and collective identity in political action. How does one’s social identity shape one’s involvement in political action? In this movie, women get involved in a strike; they become visible activists and no longer just the shadows of their husbands. Yet, their depiction in the movie presents them as essentially mothers and wives, inscribing their actions in the realm of domesticity. Thus, their actual agency remains in question.

In The Natural by Bernard Malamud, Malamud displays the magnitude of how an individual’s decisions can influence their life. Malamud’s main protagonist, Roy Hobbs, is the leading example of this idea, as Hobbs continually faces both his internal struggles stemming from his desire for success, and external struggles attributed to his roller-coaster of a professional baseball career. Malamud uses Hobbs and the sport of baseball as a metaphor for typical American life by depicting Hobbs’ struggles as similar to any average American. Therefore, through the life of Roy Hobbs, Malamud alludes to the average American and explains how moral attitude can lead to a person’s success or downfall.

In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond gives you an in depth look at societies you may or may not be familiar with and shows you the secrets to their success or failure using his personal 5-point framework. I enjoyed this book and thought he made a lot of good points and had convincing evidence to back it up. While reading you could really tell he knew a lot about the areas he discussed because of the depth he went into with details and descriptions. One complaint I would have about the book is the length he went to in the detailed descriptions, at some points I felt he went too far and got a little wordy and with as much as he gave you are left with almost no questions or curiosity. There were a few terms he uses in the book like

A person’s heritage and cultural identity may be lost when moving to a new country where the culture is different and other cultures are not easily accepted. In the short story “Hindus”, Bharati Mukherjee uses setting, characters and the plot to discuss what it is like to lose your cultural identity while being a visible minority in America. Mukherjee uses the plot to describe the events that take place in the main characters life that lead her to realize how different the culture and life is in the America’s. She also uses the characters as a way of demonstrating how moving away from one’s culture and heritage can change a person’s perspective and ways of thinking. Mukerjee also uses setting in her story to identity the physical differences in culture between living in India and America. Alike the setting and characters, the plot helps describe the loss of culture with a sequence of events.

Throughout his novel Everything Flows, Vasily Grossman provides numerous occasions for defining freedom. In the midst of attempting to give meaning to freedom, Grossman greatly invests in wrestling with the issue of why freedom is still absent within Russia although the country has seen success in many different ways. Through the idea and image of the Revolution stems Capitalism, Leninism, and Stalinism. Grossman contends that freedom is an inexorable occurrence and that “to live means to be free”, that it is simply the nature of human kind to be free (200-204). The lack of freedom expresses a lack of humanity in Russia, and though freedom never dies, if freedom does not exist in the first place, then it has no chance to be kept alive. Through Grossman’s employment of the Revolution and the ideas that stem from it, he illustrates why freedom is still absent from Russian society, but more importantly why the emergence of freedom is inevitable.

For Rafik and his father the theme of survival lies in their generation gap. Rafik’s father has chosen a decent boy for her daughter Razia from a good family “He’s from a good family.” The latter wants to have the confirmation of the boy’s “Khandaan” from Rafik. Rafik’s point of view is that we should not always look at someone’s ancestral relations to come for a conclusion. We should always look at the “Khandaan’s” present situation. But Rafik’s father explained that if someone has commit a mistake in the past that does not mean the entire “Khandaan” is to be blamed “Just because one person does something stupid doesn’t change the fact that the person is from a good family.”

She makes an important point when trying to go beyond the female (otherness), by paying careful attention to differences among women themselves, and by putting emphasize on the multiple realties that women faces, and by that trying to uncover universalist interpretations (Parpart and Marchand 1995:6). She reveals the inadequacy of binary categories by showing us how power is defined in binary terms, between the people who have (men) and the people who do not (women). This is a consequence of seeing women as a homogenous group, and contributes to the reinforcement of the binary division between men and women (Mohanty 1991:64). By assuming that women are a already constituted group with the same experiences and interests, gender is looked upon as something that can be applied cross cultures (Mohanty 1991:54), and it also produces an assumption about the “average third world woman” as poor and uneducated, in contrast to the educated, modern Western women (Mohanty 1991:56). Implicit in the binary analytic lies the assumption that the third world woman only can be liberated through western rationality. Mohanty is making an important point when emphasising the need to challenge these objectifications (Udayagiri 1995:163).