Summary Of Dear Chicago

In her play Chicago, Maurine Watkins incorporates several different themes that express the realities of the 1920’s. Some of these themes are more easily noticed than others. Among the more noticeable ones is the theme of manipulation. Watkins exemplifies the fact that manipulation was one of the most vital keys to success during this time period at several different points throughout the play. Through the encounters of Roxie Hart, Watkins shows that every character, with the exception of Amos, is manipulative and perform their lives in order to obtain success within the corrupted system.

The Civil War was fought over the “race problem,” to determine the place of African-Americans in America. The Union won the war and freed the slaves. However, when President Lincoln declared the Emancipation Proclamation, a hopeful promise for freedom from oppression and slavery for African-Americans, he refrained from announcing the decades of hardship that would follow to obtaining the new won “freedom”. Over the course of nearly a century, African-Americans would be deprived and face adversity to their rights. They faced something perhaps worse than slavery; plagued with the threat of being lynched or beat for walking at the wrong place at the wrong time. Despite the addition of the 14th and

into a pattern of lines. When I walked in the street, lights from stores and

A racially segregated Chicago had experienced few race riots prior to 1919. However, between April 1919 and October 1919, race riots spanned the nation; this became known as the Red Summer. On July 27, 1919, Chicagoans started to express their emotions on racial issues, which turned into violence, lasting several days and resulting in the deaths, injuries, and displacement of hundreds of people. During this time, Chicagoans opinions regarding racism led to extreme chaos, leaving African Americans and whites fighting with each other for wealth and opportunities. The relatively-invisible line between blacks and whites in Chicago became bolder, deepening the rift between the races. As a result of the gruesome events that occurred in the summer of 1919, segregation in Chicago deepened. Chicago city officials created the Chicago Commission of Race Relations, comprised of six whites and six blacks, with the goal of solving large racial issues in Chicago, such as housing for blacks and job competition. Today, Chicago is more desegregated, but it was an arduous journey and is still a work in progress. It is still a predominant issue, and there are many recurring examples of racial violence in Chicago currently. This makes racial inequality an even more important issue in Chicago communities, and the legacy of this racial violence continues to haunt this persistently segregated city.

Chicago is a beautiful city with many different people and things to learn or experience; however, it is a city of segregation, and it has been that way for a long time. Even though it may not be quite visible today, it still happening thorough our city. However, what is so special about ethnicity that people have to hate on each other? Is it because we all are born with different backgrounds or is it because we are raised to hate others? In the history of Chicago’s segregation, we learn about how the whites are seen as the superior beings than others in America. Moreover, we all have seen and learn how race is displayed through our media. Additionally, we all have grown up attaining knowledge from our elders, and we learn about values in life. The society of Chicago are segregated by our history, media, and standards.

The film, Chicago and the novel, The Scarlet Letter are similar and diffrent pieces of literature. Has to do with two ladies that have committed adultery due to reasons of their own. One did it to find love and affection, while the other one did it for fame.

The stage performance of Chicago offered a spectacle that I expected before attending the show. I knew there was going to be scantly clad girls with dark makeup and saucy attitudes. The performers brought to life all that was raunchy in the entertainment business during the roaring twenties. The lifestyle in Chicago featured jazz, booze, sex and crime. More importantly, Chicago had beautiful, young women with the dream of having their own Vaudeville act. The two main female characters, Velma and Roxy were two such women hoping to capture the public's attention. The composition of the show is a metaphoric integration of Vaudeville type acts amongst the book scenes and diegetic musical numbers.

Can you imagine ever performing on Broadway? Let me go a step further and ask if you could ever imagine performing in the Broadway show Chicago? To feel the excitement of performing for the longest-running American musical in Broadway history. Broadway shows may not be for everyone, but it truly says something when a show is completely sold out and not one single person is left sitting down at the end of the play.

There is one version of the story in the musical Chicago, that was done before the musical first officially aired. The non-musical play that was called Chicago, that was written in 1926, by Maurine Watkins had a lot of similarities with the musical Chicago (“Maslon, Laurence, and Michael Kantor”). In the play Chicago, the story is about two murder cases that happened in real life (Miller, Scott). The first murder case is about a character name Beulah Annan, who had an affair on her husband, then her husband threatened to leave her, but Annan then Kills her husband (Miller, Scott). In the musical Chicago, the character Rosie has many similarities with Beulah. In fact, when the character Rosie is on trial during the musical, a lot of the things she said is derived directly from Annan’s case (Miller, Scott). The second murder case is against Belva Gaertner, who shot and killed her husband in her car (Miller, Scott). The character that has a lot of similarities with Belva, is Velma. Velma and Belva in both stories claim that they were too drunk to remember how they both murdered their loved ones (Miller, Scott).

With exhibitions of the most thought-provoking art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago is one of the Nation’s largest facilities devoted to the art of our time (“About the MCA”) . The mission of the MCA is to offer a direct experience to the public of modern day art and living artists. German architect Joseph Paul Kleihues designed the new building with seven times the square feet of its previous facility (“The Building”) . October of 1967 the museum opened its doors to the public for the first time. The Museum of Contemporary Art is a symbol of modern art, culture, and the artist of our time. It is a stepping stone in history and will leave footprints in the heart of Chicago for many generations to come.

Some other inexpensive attractions in Chicago are the different museums and exhibits scattered around the downtown area.

     Carl Sandburg may be one of our most influential poets in American history, he knew the American working man and his necessities. Sandburg used his poetry to explicate to the economy how life is, can, and could be. Carl Sandburg was born in Galesburg, Illinois January 6, 1878 to Swedish immigrant parents with the names of August and Clara Johnson. His family was extremely poor. Carl left school at the age of thirteen to work odd jobs from bricklaying to dish washing to earn money to support the family. At seventeen, he left home to travel to Kansas as a hobo, there he turned to the army for help. He served eight months in Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American war.

My capstone project was to go to Chicago and to see many high quality art in art museum and murals/monuments in public in the city. It was also to study the diverse art culture of Chicago.

One of the many excitements in the news during the late sixties was the “Chicago Seven” Trial. People read about this crazy trial and the outlandish events that took place in the courtroom from the defendants wearing judicial robes to crude names and accusations directed towards the Judge. Who could we possibly expect to act so unruly in a place of order and justice? Why, the “Chicago Seven” of course. The events that led up to this trial all began with Democratic Convention of 1968 which took place in Chicago, Illinois.

The sections in this poem show similarities, they show the physical and emotional devastation caused by the war. Each sections draw’s to the reader’s attention about physiological and cultural crisis that came to affect the cultural identity after war had broken out and ended. The poem symbolizes the connections in the past to many popular places. The representation of the city in the waste land refers closely to mankind focusing closely to the unreal city. The cities that are transformed throughout the sections of the poems are broken down because of the harsh realities taking place. This leaves the outcome of the unreal city as modern society is being destroyed throughout.