Let The Water Hold Me Down By Michel Spurgeon

Nicholas Kristof attempts to be humorous in his article “Let them Sweat,” however Kristof ends up hurting his ethos significantly. Kristof attempts to lighten the mood by cracking several jokes, and statements that are unheard of and unexpected to the reader. While this attempts to create pathos, the reader is unable to relate to his statements, causing the verbiage used to harm his ethos, thus causing the reader to question his credibility. For example, “The Gentle Reader will think I've been smoking Pakistani opium” clearly shows that Kristof expects that the reader will think that he is insane, automatically creating a damaged reputation at the beginning of his article.

In his book “Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free,” Hector Tobar recounts the story of 33 miners who spent 69 days trapped more than 2000 feet underground in the Chile’s San Jose mines following the collapse of the mine in 2010. According to Tobar (2015), the disaster began on a day shift around noon when miners working deep inside the mountain excavating minerals started feeling vibrations. A sudden massive explosion then followed and the passageways of the mines filled with dust clouds. Upon settling of the dust, the men discovered that the source of the explosion was a single stone that had broken off from the rest of the mountain and caused a chain reaction leading to

The novel Never Let Me Go, written by Kazuo Ishiguro, is set in a capitalistic, dystopian society in which scientific advancements have greatly relieved society of their medical concerns, all the while, severely damaged their integrity. The exploitation of human clones for the sole purpose of implementing a sufficient number of organs for society has resulted in a change in their ethics, as well as their ego. In Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, Ishiguro uses characters to illuminate corruption in society, illustrating that greed in the pursuit of progress can negatively alter the mindset of society. By living in a capitalistic environment, one will develop a fatalist mentality in an attempt to come to terms with society and their

In Robert Cormier’s novel, We All Fall Down, is a young-adult thriller that explores the evil side of humanity through a number of corrupt characters. Cormier, to a large extent, accurately depicts manipulative and dishonest behaviour whilst also showing the evil lurking within the prominent characters of Harry Flowers, Buddy Walker and Mickey Stallings who showcase the dark side of humanity. Cormier explores this through Harry Flower’s manipulative actions that result in the suffering of others. Additionally, the constant dishonest behaviour is shown predominantly through the main protagonist of Buddy Walker, who deceives the one he loves. Cormier continues to depict the evil lurking in society through the theme of appearance

The movie “Lean on Me” was published in 1989. The movie depicts a time period when drug use/ abuse, and violence was very prevalent at Eastside High the inner city high schools in Paterson New Jersey. Eastside HS having these challenges created a societal view of low expectations for the students that attended the school. The students that attended the high school were predominately African American and Latinos, and because of their race they were considered minority groups with low social economic status and/ or expectations. Throughout the movie the diversity of race, and social economic statuses were factors mentioned. Another important factor that the movie only touched on slightly was the challenges with crack cocaine. The 80’s was an era when crack cocaine was introduced to the inner-city communities, causing much destruction to the foundation of families that had members that indulged in its use. This caused the lack of parent engagement and support systems for youths. Many of the youths in the movie was raising themselves, which included finding the means to support their and/ or their family’s basic everyday needs such as: food, clothing, and shelter. That alone opened the door to negative influences like drug dealing, drug use, drug abuse, and violence. Many of the students at Eastside HS were more focus on everyday survival, then the importance of having an education and the growth that it would bring them. The movie

In the novel Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro presents the story of Kathy H., and her friends Tommy and Ruth, who are growing up at Hailsham. Hailsham resembles an English contemporary boarding school, but one discovers that this school is specifically for clone children that have been created to donate their organs for the betterment of society. The author uses a descriptive narrative by Kathy to present the story of the short lives of clones, and the human lives they lead with all the difficulties intensified by mortality; this magnifies due to the short allotment of time they live. Art and creativity are prevalent throughout the story lending a feeling that the children’s art can lead to immortality as they will live on even after their demise through their art. Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go, presents a search for one’s identity and sense of meaning in a dystopian society focusing on self-expression and creativity.

In “We are made of water,” Marilyn Dumont uses the image of water to depict the similarities every person has with another, by being a human being. The water acts as the bridge on that Dumont wants to be seen as an equal despite being coming from an ethnic minority with that being the Metis for her. Through the physical barrier, Dumont shows just how similar everyone can be, also illustrating a nature vs nurture scenario, in that by nature or through the physical looks, people are similar just like how everyone is made of water. The poem illustrates how she has finally found her position in the world, a fully blooming flower that struggled to bloom throughout her life in a white dominant society. Of all the poems she could’ve ended her book

How do you classify rather someone is human or not? A tricky question has many different possible answers, but only a few that could be justified as being human. Kazuo Ishiguro has addressed this topic in his book Never Let Me Go. A reoccurring question throughout the novel is rather or not these clones are considered a human being or just another science project. Suspicious individuals of the surrounding communities in the novel, believed that the students were not human, because they could not reproduce, they did not have any parents, and for the slight fact that what the students were going through was morally unacceptable. In my opinion, Ishiguro shows that the clones are indeed human, because of their artwork, which proves that

Chinua Achebe wrote the fictional novel “Things Fall Apart” based on a tribe located in an Ibo village in Nigeria. This story takes place in the era of colonization and imperialism except this time; it is from the viewpoint of the Africans. It is reasonable to say that Achebe’s work focuses around the unique protagonist, Okonkwo, and his beliefs along with how white men’s colonization impacted the African society. This novel can tie into our classes’ discussion with the various elements of the white colonization of the African continent.

Chi, is what gives life, it differentiates a corpse from a live human being. It is energy that unites the body, mind and spirit. This concept is one that we all would be familiar with and has its origins in early Chinese philosophy, but in terms of the novel “Things Fall Apart” written by Chinua Achebe in 1958, this concept of chi differs slightly. In Igbo there are two distinct meanings of the word chi, the first is often translated as guardian angel, personal spirit etc. and the second day or daylight and is most commonly used for the transitional periods between day and night or night and day. It is an individual’s personal god, whose merit is determined by the individual’s good fortune or lack thereof. It is said that “wherever something stands, something else will stand beside it”, nothing is absolute. A man lives here and his chi there. Meaning that there are two versions of everything, one in the spiritual world and one in the human world. As there is for the characters in the novel. *Put up the two pictures of Okonkwo, write up one for Okonkwo + Okonkwo’s chi*

Imagine a world one day when every single person shares one culture, the most influential and powerful existing. There are millions of cultures in existence but how can they all possibly collapse, equaling only one? In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, the father-son conflict of Okonkwo and Nwoye is used as a microcosm representing how societies of multiple cultures fall apart, reflecting upon the roots of the conflict. In this particular case, the Igbo society and British culture collides, resulting in the destruction of the inferior Igbo culture.

In our society we push for sameness, not wanting to stand out as being different, and to follow the rules that are placed without questioning them. Carson Kressley once said, “It 's really important to share the idea that being different might feel like a problem at the time, but ultimately diversity is a strength (brainyquote).” Like Kressley is saying, whether we know it or not, we are teaching our children at a young age that being different is a problem and wrong. We begin to draw ourselves a box of what is normal and acceptable and as we grow and learn we find that the ideas inside boxes tend to line up with the ideas with the rest of societies box. This idea stays with us for most of our lives and we judge and regard other people based on if they are different or if they are normal like the rest of society. In the novel Never Let Me Go the author, Kazuo Ishiguro, uses structure, character, and imagery to try and bring to light the damage that we are causing when we create these strict boundaries to be the same and rules that we expect everyone to follow and how we need to change this mind frame lest we allow it to affect our morals and what we deem to be truly important in our lives.

In “So Much Water So Close to Home”, Carver creates a story describing the disparity of power between genders, focusing especially on a female perspective to allow us to understand how the protagonist Claire is feeling throughout the situation with a rape victim, Susan Miller. Through her viewpoint, we witness events and feelings that even Claire’s own husband does not realize, and also some feelings that Claire herself does not fully comprehend. These characteristics help shape the text and establishes gendered modes of experiencing the world. As a whole, “So Much Water So Close to Home” exhibits how women during Claire’s time were more prone to gendered imbalances both in a relationship and society.

Chinua Achebe’s postcolonial novel Things Fall Apart was first published in 1958 and narrates the fall of a great Ibo (Nigerian) warrior, Okwonko, after the arrival of white colonialists. Tony Harrison’s Selected Poems was published in 2006 and includes poems taken from his renowned sonnet sequence School of Eloquence, which draw upon Harrison’s own upbringing and pay tribute to the challenges of the British working class. Finally William Golding’s dystopian novel Lord of the Flies, first published in 1954, is about the struggle faced by a group of young boys abandoned on a desert island to retain civilisation and basic humanity. Problems with expression and communication are central in all three texts, and are explored on several levels.

Cultural perspective is the manner in which the environment, social, and cultural factors shape people. These factors are gender, race, and nationality of an individual. Cultural perspective has a significant influence on how people relate between themselves as well as their capability to communicate. People that have a diverse cultural perspective might have difficulties understanding why the other conduct themselves in a particular manner. Moreover, cultural perspective affects the relationships that individuals have with themselves like emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing or their absence. Things Fall Apart is a novel that was written by Chinua Achebe, who is a supporter of multiculturalism as depicted in his book through the