Jonathan Kozol’s Fire in the Ashes is an honest depiction of the hardships and triumphs of families in the South Bronx, New York. In this book, Kozol introduces us to several Hispanic and Black families that he originally met in the Mott Haven/Martinique Hotel in the 1980’s and allows us to view their trajectory in the proceeding 25 years. By allowing the reader a look into the lives of these families, he provides us with a realistic depiction of the disadvantages families living in poverty encounter despite interventions from charity organizations and philanthropic donors. Kozol identifies that without “systematic justice and systematic equity in public education” (Kozol, 2013, pg 304) students in these impoverished neighborhoods will continue to lack the same economic opportunities that may potentially lead them out of the welfare system. Kozol emphasizes lack of stable housing, and unequal educational opportunities, as primarily conditions to perpetuating poverty. Despite the challenges that the families endure, Kozol is able to show that they are resilient.
As the fireman, Guy Montag, from Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury changes his view on the world, his view on fire changes as well. Throughout the book he encounters many different people who each change him in different ways. Some people convince him that fire is great because of its destruction. It burns away the things that make people unhappy, and changes things. However, as his journey continues, he begins to see fire as an escape. By the end of the book, he realizes that fire does not just take and destroy, but it gives.
Many writers in history have written science fiction novels and had great success with them, but only a few have been as enduring over time as Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Slaughterhouse-Five is a personal novel which draws upon Vonnegut's experience's as a scout in World War Two, his capture and becoming a prisoner of war, and his witnessing of the fire bombing of Dresden in February of 1945 (the greatest man-caused massacre in history). The novel is about the life and times of a World War Two veteran named Billy Pilgrim. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut uses structure and point of view to portray the theme that time is relative.
In Fahrenheit 451 ,written by Ray Bradbury, the motif of fire, sparks an interest in the reader which pulls them into the life of Guy Montag. In the daily life of Montag, Bradbury portrays the importance of fire in the censored society. From Montag's standpoint the reader gains a clear perspective of the symbolism and importance of fire. Throughout the story fire is used to represent a different emotion or characteristic. At the start of the book fire symbolizes destruction; towards the middle of the book fire is used to represent change and discovering ones identity; and finally at the conclusion of the story fire symbolizes renewal and rebirth.
When British and American forces raided the city with firebombs, Vonnegut and his fellow captives were saved due to their underground imprisonment. The bombing killed more than 135,000 people, most of whom were innocent civilians, more than the deaths of Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. After the bombing, Vonnegut was given the morbid task of carrying the corpses from Air-Raid shelters, including women, children, and the elderly; dead from concussions, fire, or suffocation. In a letter to his father, Vonnegut described his job and the reaction of the locals, “Civilians cursed us and threw rocks as we carried bodies to huge pyres in the city,” (Boomhower). His distressing internment in Dresden not only furthered his anti-war sentiments, but also established a reoccurring theme in his books: the irrationality of government and the senselessness of war. Vonnegut saw the bombing of Dresden and the slaughter of innocents as wasteful and meaningless. He could not comprehend the purpose of destroying a “beautiful” and fully functional civilization (Wiswell 5). The annihilation of the city and lives of the innocent affirmed his views of war as a waste, and even lead to his feeling that, “civilization ended in World War I” (Vitale). This view indicated Vonnegut believed World War II was a meaningless act committed by the uncivilized.
People react differently to tragedies: some mourn, some speak up, and some avoid the sorrow. In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut suggests the danger and inhumanity of turning away from the discomfort by introducing Billy Pilgrim as someone who is badly affected by the aftermath of the Dresden bombing, and the Tralfamadorians as the aliens who provide an easy solution to Billy. It is simpler to avoid something as tragic as death, but Vonnegut stresses the importance of confronting it. Vonnegut, like many artists, expresses his ideas through his creations. The significance of art is not confined to helping and inspiring the general public; the process of creating art also becomes another form of coping mechanism for artists.
Lord of the Flies by William Golding acquires an elaborate way to develop deeper meanings of each symbols especially fire and Piggy’s glasses.
The Slaughterhouse Five novel, is a fictional and nonfictional delight all clashed into one. The author, Kurt Vonnegut, amazingly combines a fictional character’s life with the nonfictional influence of what Kurt himself had experienced. As well as major topics being debated on and dealt with today. Billy Pilgrim takes hold of the story’s main protagonist as a prisoner of war during the Dresden raids in eastern Germany. While reading, I found many relationships in the novel to common concerns, such as time and death; too correlated opinions from other anti-war enthusiasts.
Descartes contends that he frequently dreams of things that appear to be genuine to him while he is snoozing. In one dream, he sits by a fire in his room, and it appears he can feel the glow of the fire, similarly as he feels it in his cognizant existence, despite the fact that there is no fire. The way that he feels the fire doesn't generally enable him to tell when he is alert and when he is envisioning. Besides, if his faculties can pass on to him the warmth of the fire when he doesn't generally feel it, he can't assume that the fire exists when he feels it in his cognizant existence.
Marked by two world wars and the anxiety that accompanies humanity's knowledge of the ability to destroy itself, the Twentieth Century has produced literature that attempts to depict the plight of the modern man living in a modern waste land. If this sounds dismal and bleak, it is. And that is precisely why the dark humor of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. shines through our post-modern age. The devastating bombing of Dresden, Germany at the close of World War II is the subject of Vonnegut's most highly acclaimed work, Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death. Vonnegut's experience as an American POW in Dresden
In the spring of 1945, near the end of World War II, American and British bombers rained a hail of fire upon the city of Dresden, Germany. With an estimated 135,000 dead, Dresden is known as one of the deadliest attacks in History, nearly twice as many deaths than the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Kurt Vonnegut was among the few who lived through the firestorm; he wrote a book about it in fact. Slaughter House-Five (1969) is a fictional recount of his experience of the war. Many of the events (at least the parts set in WWII) are real experiences of Kurt. The people in the war are, for the most part, real; Vonnegut just changes all the names. The main character, however does not
The Fire This Time, by Jesmyn Ward, describes and explains the struggles that many African Americans face on a daily basis. In her introduction, Ward wants to address the ongoing racial injustices in the United States. Being an African American woman who grew up in the United States, she has dealt first hand with the “limiting, airtight closet” she describes as living in the American South. Jesmyn Ward gives the readers a glimpse of what the book, The Fire This Time, will be about. Touching on the interwoven past and present of African American lives, the many victims of racial injustice in the United States, and the image White people have of African Americans.
In this project we examined three explanations that talk about (a) candle(s) in a jar and their investigation reasoning to why the labs they did were concluding in such a way. The first explanation resulted that the candle inside the jar took up all the oxygen molecules inside the flask which then lowers the pressure inside and the higher pressure outside the flask is what causes the water to rise up. The second explanation resulted in that the air pressure increases inside the jar because of the heat from the candle, which causes air to come out of the jar and once the candle cools down the pressure decreases and the pressure outside the jar increases which results in pushing the air in and making the water rise up. The third explanation resulted in oxygen inside the flask becoming carbon dioxide which then dissolves in water causing the air pressure to decrease under the glass and the higher pressure outside the flask pushed the water up the flask. I believe that explanation number three is right because the flame causes carbon dioxide to be created and that
Kurt Vonnegut’s personal experiences of World War II and the firebombing of Dresden were important factors in determining his writing style and the political and philosophical views that it conveyed. Throughout his works, the overarching message that Vonnegut delivers is the need for love and compassion in a world where humans are helpless against an indifferent fate.
Slaughterhouse-Five, a novel written by Kurt Vonnegut, tells the story of the devastating effects of war on a man, Billy Pilgrim, who joins the army fight in World War II. The semi-autobiographical novel sheds light on one of history’s most tragic, yet rarely spoken of events, the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany.