The Connection between A Bug’s Life and The Chosen People Essay

The Dominican Republic’s dictator Rafael Trujillo had thousands of people killed because of their disobedience to him. From the 1930s to 1960s the country was under the control of Trujillo. He had taken control of the Dominican Republic and used his power against people who decided not to follow him and his laws. The four Mirabal sisters, Minerva, Patria, Mate, and Dede were all risking their lives because of their involvement in the underground, against their harsh dictator. In the book In the time of the Butterflies, the four Mirabal sisters perspectives are impacted by the underground movement against Trujillo because of each of their involvement with the revolution.

A philosopher named Peter Singer once said, “All the arguments to prove man’s superiority cannot shatter this hard fact: in suffering animals are our equals.” Human beings always look for ways to make themselves feel superior to one another. Whether it be by looking down upon those whose come from different backgrounds, or feeling superior because they are part of a privileged group of people, it is natural for humans to disdain the inferior and place themselves on a higher social level. Children will often scorn others for things such as status, but how far can immature teasing lead them? This idea of power imbalance is exemplified in William Golding's novel, Lord of The Flies, where we see young boys look down upon each other based on their status before they were isolated from the rest of the world. Golding describes Jack, Ralph, and Piggy in a way that establishes that each boy represents some class in society, which affects their decisions and the overall outcome of their stay on the island.

In the short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the author uses symbolism and characterization to paint the scene of a girl in a literary fiction that has lost her way and ends up finding herself within her Grandmother through the cycles of life. Through the eyes of an unnamed girl we relive a past that has both a traumatic ending and a new leash on life; however, we do not get there without first being shown the way, enter “The Moths”.

The ant colony, which is the movie’s source of struggle and triumph, represents a typical old traditional economy. The ants relied on the fruits of their own labor. In other words, they are farmers like the other third-world countries in our today’s world. However, the time came when they no longer farm for themselves anymore. Since the beginning of the movie, the ants had to spend all of their time grazing for the grasshoppers. This is a classical depiction of a powerful nation

Disney’s Pixar film, A Bug’s Life, is much more than meets the eye. The film is not only an animated comedy; it holds deep sociological theory within its plot. Many of the major themes and concepts of the movie can be viewed through the lens of the famous theorist Karl Marx. Marx’s theory is famous for focusing on how society functions. In particular he concerns himself with how capitalism, the working class, and the revolutions create problems in our society. My paper will analyze how Marxian theory and concepts fit into major climactic scenes of the film.

     When a group of children become stranded on a deserted island, the rules of society no longer apply to them. Without the supervision of their parents or of the law, the primitive nature of the boys surfaces. Consequently, the boys live without luxury that could have been obtained had they maintained a society on the island. Instead, these young boys take advantage of their freedom, and life as they knew it deteriorates. Lord of the Flies is influenced by the author's life and experiences. Golding's outlook on life changes, due to his heavy involvement in W.W.II, to his current philosophy that "The shape of society must depend on the ethical nature of the individual, and not on any political system

Living the American dream was a part of the road to Suburbia. As soldiers were returning home from the wars, births were reaching record highs known as the baby boom. Just in the year 1957, a total of 4,308,000 babies were born.4 Desiring large families and great economic prosperity, the women’s role as mother and homemaker were built-up in movies and television and magazines. Ultimately, with additional “leisure time” at home, Americans bought televisions, nice record players, lawn mowers and other electronic products. Manufactures and advertising agencies jumped at the opportunity to profit on consumerism. “More and more, ad executives and designers turned to psychology to create new strategies for selling. Advertisers appealed to people’s desire for status and “belongingness” and strived to associate their products with those values.”5 The Baby Boomers that began the consumerism in the mid-1950’s socially altered the United States then and still do

Have you ever wondered what life is like for people in specific social classes and all the baggage that comes with being wealthy? In the article “Amber Waves of Green”, author Jon Ronson has sit downs with hard working americans making a income of $200 a week all the way up to $625,000 a week. In another writing titled “The Mansion”, written by Michael Lewis, allows the reader to get insight on what life is like as a middle class individual taking on a higher style of living. Within the two articles the reader can point out that both Jon Ronson and Michael Lewis disagree on living styles, what wealth can do for you, and how it can affect the people around you.

America is the land of opportunity and equality. Many people grow up believing this to be absolutely true, but Stephen Marche feels otherwise. He wrote “We Are Not All Created Equal,” arguing his point that opportunities in this country are strictly determined by the fate of ones class in society. Marche starts off making a strong case by mentioning the United States’ third place ranking for the least amount of social mobility. In further attempts to prove his point he outlines how class determines the fate of Americans place in society by comparing it’s rigid divisions to those of the aristocracy in Britain. There is a repeating idea throughout the paper that many people in the upper classes love to assume that the poor should fault themselves for their predicament due to their lack of hard work. Marche knocks that assumption out the park with statistical evidence to back up his claims. Although he made a very convincing argument with facts, he had a host of overgeneralized statements throughout the paper, which ultimately weakened his argument of class being the only determining factor of success in America.

In today’s mass media, it is quiet common for advertisers to assimilate class into their commercials. These advertisements portray a certain level of elegance because of the sophisticated choice to use classical background music and thick European accents. On the contrary, other advertisers take the common-folk approach by structure these commercials around the western concept. Both of these advertising tactics supports an American paradox. As argued in Jack Solomon’s “Master of Desire: The Culture of American Advertising”, the contradiction lies in the desire to strive above the crowd and the quest for social equality.

“The Danger of a Dominant Identity,” discusses what one columnist believes to be one of the largest problems facing America today. David Brooks, a columnist for the New York Times, argues that reducing people to nothing more than a label with a singular identity is one of the largest problems America faces. Through the appropriate use of rhetorical appeals, David Brooks writes an effective article by informing and firmly convincing the reader of the danger in viewing others as one-sided.

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” (Andre Gide) In the novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, written by Julia Alvarez, four sisters are led through a risk infested journey in which they must overcome hindrances with hollow consequences. This historical fiction novel takes us through a rollercoaster of events, incorporating everything from the partialities towards women, to life below the oppressive administration of the Dominican Republic’s dictator, Rafael Trujillo. The events painted by the four sisters give us some insight as to the positives and negatives of life in the Dominican Republic. As the novel progresses, we see the diversity in relation to the

Each ant and has specific task, which it completes repeatedly. The absolute power exerted by the leader destroys all individualism, leaving the ants with no creativity. Instead, they use trail and error to complete tasks that should take only a small amount of thought. Wart sees this occur when an ant tries with difficulty to organize three cadavers in a small burial chamber, when a small amount of reasoning would of solved the problem quickly. The ants are of a collective mind, so that what one thinks, they all think. They go about their daily lives oblivious to the control the leader has over them.

The disney film, A Bug’s Life, is a story of an outcast who must rise up as the hero to fix his mistakes in order to ensure the good of the other ants in his colony. His colony is in danger of starving due to unfair demands, and oppression brought upon them by grasshopper bugs who serve as antagonist to the story, and tyrants over the ants. Flik must leave the safety of ant island to seek bigger bugs to save the colony. Flik is only one ant, in a societal structure that changes due to revolution and resistance, and a change of mind.

“It 's a bug-eat-bug world out there, Princess. One of those circle-of-life kind of things. Now, let me tell you how things are supposed to work. The sun grows the food. The ants pick the food. The grasshoppers eat the food. (A Bug’s Life, 1998)” a quote from the ring leader of the grasshoppers, Hopper, in the film A Bug’s Life (November 1998). John Lasseter’s Disney production was released in November of 1998 where it gave an overview of the world of ants and their everyday struggles. When it comes to ants, you think about their teamwork and strategic tasks; never would anyone think that any type of unethical actions were