Knife By Hannah Höch

Generally, when innocence is thought of, the first speculation recalled to one’s mind is the thought of pureness and the idea that the specific individual is free from moral wrong. On the other end of the spectrum is the term known as guilt. Guilt is the emotional notion in which one feels that they have compromised his or her own standards in a negative way. In the novel Sarah’s Key, Sarah frequently proves to struggle with both guilt and innocence. These specific themes are put on display when Sarah realizes she is not going back home, the scenario in which Sarah boards the cattle car to the camps, and the tragic event in which Sarah takes her own life.

In the book Girl, Interrupted by Susanna Kaysen, Susanna Kaysen was only 18 years old when she agreed to enter a medium security psychiatric facility in Boston, McLean hospital in April 1967, after a failed suicide attempt. She insisted that her over dose on aspirin was not a suicide attempt, but after a 20 minute interview the doctor decided she needed to be admitted to a hospital. During her prolonged two-year stay at the hospital Kaysen describes the issues that most of the patients in her ward have to deal with and how they all differently deal with the amount of time they must stay in the hospital for. While in the hospital Kaysen experienced a case of depersonalization where she tried to pull the skin of her hands to see if there were bones underneath, after a failed escape attempt. Soon, after going to therapy and analysis she was labeled as having recovered from borderline personality disorder. After her release she realizes that McLean Hospital provided patients with more freedom than the outside world, by being free responsibility of parental pressure, free from school and job responsibilities, and being free from the “social norms” that society comes up with. Ultimately, being in captivity gave the patients more freedom then in society and created a safe environment in which patients wanted to stay in.

In the article Skin Deep written by Nina Jablonski and George Chaplin, they discuss and look deeper into the diverse differences in skin color. Our skin color has developed over the years to be dark enough to prevent the damaging sunlight that has been harming our skin and the nutrient folate that it carries. At the same time out skin is light enough to receive vitamin D.

Dogeaters is Jessica Hagedorn’s first novel. The author returned to her native Philippines in 1988 to write the work, and it was published in 1990 when it received the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. The novel reflects the eclectic life of its author whose experiences have included acting, singing, songwriting, and writing poetry, drama, and fiction. For the most part, Dogeaters has been well received by critics and scholars who commend its experimental nature and innovative writing style. Jessica Hagedorn is a well-respected post-colonial author whose works present gender, social, and cultural themes. Dogeaters is considered one of the most widely studied novels about the Philippines and is an important example of

Sanity is subjective. Every individual is insane to another; however it is the people who possess the greatest self-restraint that prosper in acting “normal”. This is achieved by thrusting the title of insanity onto others who may be unlike oneself, although in reality, are simply non-conforming, as opposed to insane. In Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted, this fine line between sanity and insanity is explored to great lengths. Through the unveiling of Susanna’s past, the reasoning behind her commitment to McLean Hospital for the mentally ill, and varying definitions of the diagnosis that Susanna received, it is evident that social non-conformity is often confused with insanity.

Feminist ideas are used throughout this story in both explicit and implicit ways to help describe the gender roles placed upon females in the 1950s. “That figure was a garish blond showgirl, a Hollywood ‘sexpot’ of no interest to intellectuals”. (Page 79) The author explicitly includes the

The two publications that best contextualize gender are the Lowell Offering and the Godey’s Lady Book periodicals as the articles found in both magazines depict traditional gender roles for males and females. For the Lowell Offering, this is best seen in the article entitled, “Woman’s Proper Sphere”, which focuses on the thoughts associated with oppression like, “Is it ambitious wish to shine as man’s equal, in the same scenes in which he mingles” or “Does she wish for a more extensive influence, than that which emanates from a woman’s home?” Yet these progressive questions are met with answers like “How necessary, then, that she should understand these pursuits (of men), that she may truly sympathize with and encourage those, with whom she may be associated. In this way…her influence must and

Forks Over Knives, directed and written by Lee Fulkerson, examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods. This film follows multiple doctors and their experimental process of attempting to understand the connection between the human diet and the many human ailments that occur in the world. Forks Over Knives creates a very persuasive case for eliminating meat and dairy from the dinner table.

The book Black Hearts is written by Jim Frederick and tells the story of all the controversial accounts one infantry unit ran into while on deployment in Baghdad, Iraq. The book is a documentation, captured accounts and events written down to tell the crazy story these soldiers went through. The specific unit Frederick writes about and what Black Hearts is about is 2nd brigade of the 101st airborne infantry division. “Black Hearts” was the unofficial insignia of 2nd brigade. Frederick covers one platoon in particularly and their ethical dilemmas they encounter while on deployment. 1st platoon, Bravo Company, 1-502nd Regiment is the unit the book covers. Many things on deployment unfold poorly for this platoon such as having little

Girl Interrupted is Susanna Kaysen 's memoir a series of recollections and reflections of her nearly two year stay at a residential psychiatric program at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts. She looks back on it with a sense of surprise. In her memoir she considers how she ended up at McLean, and whether or not she truly belonged there. Each chapter focuses on one aspect of her experience. Founded in the late 19th century, McLean Hospital had been a facility for troubled members of wealthy and aristocratic families. By the late 1960s, however, McLean had fallen into a period neglect. This was a time of great change in the mental health care field. Kaysen grew up in a wealthy and prestigious family. Like most teenagers, she was rebellious at times, confused and unsure about her future. She didn’t want to go to college and slept with her high school English teacher. She witnessed firsthand the widening generation gap that was developing in the late 1960s. Older generations looked at Kaysen’s generation 's world with alarm.

In this essay I intend to explore the narrative conventions and values, which Oliver Smithfield presents in the short story Victim. The short story positions the reader to have negative and sympathetic opinion on the issues presented. Such as power, identity and bullying. For example Mickey the young boy is having issues facing his identity. It could be argued that finding your identity may have the individual stuck trying to fit in with upon two groups.

Sophie Treadwell’s Machinal is a strangely riveting play so filled with unlikable characters that it makes one want to scream and throttle which ever one is closest to hand without prejudice as to which persona it might be as they are all equally detestable in their own way. Unfortunately, the infuriating characters are exactly what make the play so fascinating. Each of the characters in the play, originally intended to display that life is an inescapable machine, exhibits many disturbing psychological qualities, and the main character suffers a slew of near textbook psychological misfortune. Whether Sophie Treadwell created her play with this facet intentionally or not is unknown, but the examples are so perfect it is difficult to think

What would be the perfect job? If one is truly asking, the answer will change multiple times based on the person asked. A career path can be perfect to an individual, but horrific to another. For example, I could never survive as a fitness trainer, because fitness is not for me unless, I’m fitness—whole pizza in my tummy. The Knife by Richard Selzer explains how being a doctor for the right one is an extortionary experience. For some the sight of blood or even getting a shot is an unpleasant experience. But on a smaller scale, some may assume that being a server is awful.

The novel, Girl, Interrupted is a memoir of author Susana Kaysen’s life and her journey through early adulthood as she suffered with Borderline Personality Disorder. The novel captures her time at McLean Hospital, a psychiatric hospital located in Belmont, Massachusetts. Kaysen divides the novel into separate anecdotes of events and fellow patients she encountered during the two years she was admitted at Mclean.

“Aragay and Lopez find the late-twentieth-century cultural context, in which (they assert) female spectators no longer believe in romance yet need to do so, embedded in the Bridget Jones books and films. I take this to be a reference to the post-feminist world view, in which women's apparent freedom of choice implies that feminism is now redundant, but feminists argue that the position of women in this world is still "limited and unfair" and that this very freedom is complicit in constraining women to traditional roles and creating anxiety about achieving success in those roles” (Raitt).