In the gust of wind, a bag circulates in the air. This image is from a highly acclaimed movie, American Beauty. In this movie, we follow the life of Lester Burnham, the archetype of a suburban middle-aged man, as he goes through a mid-life crisis. He has the perfect job, the perfect house, and the perfect family. Everything that he aspires to have is his after working so long for it. Now, he is stuck in his banal daily routine. At the end when he dies, he flashes back to all of his treasured memories and the plastic bag scene appears.
This isn’t just a “plastic bag floating in the wind.” This is the weightless, infinite feeling we all have at some point in our lives. The human race is a deep species with emotional depths far deeper than the ocean. This is the meaning of freedom and feeling eternal and unbound by life’s ties even if it’s just for a moment. That’s the beauty behind this scene.
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The plastic bag is a metaphor for living in the present. This awe-inducing sea creature survives in the vast ocean day by day. Life doesn’t pass the Mantis Shrimp by. Time doesn’t fly by for them. They live their lives second by second. They don’t even have to worry about danger, because nature equips them with weapon-like body parts. They don’t have to worry about food, because their ninja-like agility allows them to catch their food. They don’t have to worry about finding shelter, because the ocean’s floor is theirs to take. Sometimes, I wish I were a Mantis Shrimp. Not knowing when I’m going to be eaten and die. Until I become a part of discounted seafood platter, I can just live my life in the comfortable unknown of the
I think the artist is able to communicate the bad condition of the ship and its crew is in. The mood of the work is scary and gloomy. The design and intensity of the waves, the changing weather, and the ships in the ocean seem to make the scene come alive. It really conveys a since of naturalism in the painting the way it depicts the environment around the ship.
but typically is used more generally to refer to any of the mantid family. The
It gives a glimpse into Louie’s eyes as to how he feels in that moment. The line “He felt his consciousness slipping, his mind losing adhesion…” is the perfect example of making the camp “swim” when it really means that that his vision is fading and causing everything to seem to be moving around him. This shows the difficulty of the task at hand. It gives the camp human qualities and actions such as swimming; which makes it powerful also.
This painting by Leonardo Bazzaro symbolizes the poem in a way that no other painting can do, the pain and despair that goes into every word of the poem is reflected on the faces of those on the canoe in the painting. It brings in all of the aspects of the highs and lows of each stanza. They are taking a moment, a precious heartbeat of their time while the sun slowly sets into the horizon to think, to say a prayer. As the woman bows her head to take a moment to collect and compose her thoughts, a flood of emotions rushes through her and she takes a minute to realize that even her darkest days she must praise. Even though
Embracing plastic bags and shouting at a loss that cannot be compensated are the melancholies experiences in life. Lots of mothers pray and wait anxiously at the door to take in their heroes. Afterward suddenly, they lose their hope when seeing the green plastic bags along the floor. The poem “Homecoming” symbolized the young soldiers who have died on the battlefield and subsequently brought home in body bags. The soldiers intensify the sadness in this poem as they perish in a terrible way instead of supplementing their lives while getting old day yet day. In this poem, Dawe explores repetition in “all day, day after day” to emphasize the arrival of a nameless body which is hence different from the heartfelt joy extended to a loved one. The
In the article, "Plastic in Our Oceans", Kimberly Amaral discusses the everyday uses of plastic and how it can be beneficial to humans, but harmful to marine life. As fishermen casually dump waste overboard, animals mistake it for food sources, such as a turtle mistaking a plastic grocery bag for a jellyfish. From the trash brought out to sea, gyres, large circulations of water, carry the garbage through currents, spreading it to all over the ocean, specifically to the central gyre. Amaral notes common ways for marine life to die from plastic, which include entanglement by plastic rings, consumption of plastic bags and pellets which stuff the intestines and lead to health problems, and suffocation. As researchers today work hard to discover
It represents the boundary the family has to cross the get freedom. As they cross the ocean on the boat, they make the first step to freedom. Also, Mai gets her freedom in the water, “She is weightless.She is free. She is smiling as she opens herself to the waters and breathes in eternity”. She fails to go chase the freedom with her family, but she gets her eternal freedom in the water.
“American Beauty”, the 1999 film, is a motion picture that more or less shows a different side of the average suburban family. Although all of the characters have significant issues, I have chosen to take a closer look at Lester Burnham. Lester Burnham is a 42-year-old businessman who is married to the career-obsessed Carolyn and they have one daughter, a teenager named Jane. One of the first scenes of the movie explains how the family works: Carolyn is driving, just like she “drives” the family, Jane is sitting right next to her in the front seat, and Lester is slouched in the backseat, visually becoming more miserable by the second.
Andy Goldsworthy is an artist who creates art for the sole purpose of nature changing it. For example, he created pinecone-shaped structures from rocks and allows them to become engulfed by the ocean or hidden by plants. He explains how his art exemplifies how he wants people to view change, saying “I haven’t simply made the piece to be destroyed by the sea... The work has been given to the sea as a gift, and the sea has taken the gift and made more of it than I could have ever hoped for.” Paired with the calming yet slightly eerie soundtrack in the clip, it represents the uncertainty that comes with change and although the feeling of anxiety can be overwhelming, you can still survive.
The swimmer finds himself past the point of no return in the quest, so to speak, and at the mercy of whatever he encounters, such as the shark Connelly suggests in the imagery of the last stanza. Finally, Connelly ended the poem by writing “But what we own beyond a shadow of a doubt is our fear of being eaten alive, torn apart in depths we have entered willingly” (20-27). This part of the metaphor uses the violent image of being attacked by a shark to represent the severity of our encounter with the sublime. In the quest for the ideal the only thing we can be certain of is that it will not be easy and the uncertainty of what will be there waiting for you. The shark in the ocean’s depth is an apppropriate symbol for the sublime as defined by Rousseau’s explanation of Kant’s philosophy: “something that is fearful and incomprehensible that one wants to resist” (“Kant’s Beauty and the Sublime” 1).
The ocean toys with the sailors, because after “successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it” (Crane). The immaculate power of the ocean is very insensible to the small boat, just as our great universe could not care less for man. The sea represents something which seems very large to mankind, but is insignificant in comparison to the universe. The universe is represented by the power of the sea, and the small boat in this sea is symbolic of man in this giant
It is a recurring trend that water holds importance in cinema. It generally is either seen as a place of refuge, like in It Follows, or it is a place of danger, like in Ratcatcher, and Under the Skin. Once this has been established, this scene takes place in the middle of an empty pool. I found it interesting how the scene takes place in an area where the thing that they are supposed to fear has been completely removed, and now they can only stand in its
To be more specific, the story is about what a plastic bag has to endure during its journey. He finds a maker, is happy with his maker, is abandoned by his maker, tries to find her, cannot. He then finds love in a pink bag, loses her, finds other bags preaching about the void. He goes to the void, realizes it sucks and gets stuck in the ocean wishing it would be able to die.
The beautiful painting is a visual treat to anyone laying eyes on it. The blue sky the wavy water the sailboats all are ironic to any coastal shore. The moon on the distance is an indication that it’s early dusk or dawn. The sea looks windswept but calm and clear rather than stormy and angry. The ship is setting out on a long journey but the butterflies are an indication to a positive spin on departure so it’s probably intended for people who have had or will have firsthand experience with departure and those emotions.
The Mantis Shrimps are marine crustaceans of the Stomatopoda. The specific species I choose to focus on is Lysiosquillina maculate, or Zebra Mantis Shrimp. The Zebra Mantis Shrimp is the largest Mantis Shrimp in the world, growing up to a length of 40cm. Most members of the Stomatopod order share mostly similar characteristics, so some of what I will write about is not specific to just Lysiosquillina maculate, but most of the members of the order.Anatomy and PhysiologyThere are over 450 different species of Mantis Shrimp. Although the Zebra Mantis Shrimp is the largest of all Mantis Shrimp species, the average length for Mantis Shrimps is around 10cm. Mantis Shrimps have a bony, thick shell that covers the back part of its head and the first for segments of its chest area, or thorax. The Zebra Mantis Shrimp possess sets of appendages that stem from its chest, called thoracic appendages. These appendages have evolved to be extremely powerful in close quarters combat. Mantis Shrimps are normally divided into two subcategories based on their hunting strategy. The first category is called the “Spearers”, and the second is known as the “Smashers”. The “Spearers” are armed with sharp appendages that are topped with barbed tips. The smashers possess both a well-developed club, and a less developed spear. The spear possess by the smashers is still sharp, and has some uses, however their main hunting tool is their club-like appendage. The club is used to smash their prey, and break