Water For Elephants Great Depression

In the article “PETA urges L.A. to ban all wild animals from circus performances”, Alexia Fernandez highlights the speed with which animal activists go in order to free wild animals from being used in circuses. According to the spokesman for the Ringling Bros, after L.A. “banned circuses from using bullhooks to manage elephants” in 2014, PETA activists demanded that circuses remove wild animals from their performances and Barnum & Bailey Circus begged to differ by arguing that animals in their facilities are taken good care of and are not mistreated (Fernandez, 2016). In conclusion, both sides of the arguments believe that neither is misinformed.

Circus performers are people of great courage. They have to make a living out of entertaining people that pay good money to watch them and want to get their money's worth. They have a lot of pressure from that, as well as peer pressure from their fellow performers. Not only do they have pressure from that, they have to worry about the very acts being preformed from playing with swords and fire to hanging from a wire hundreds of feet in the air. If their not focused on what they are doing, they can be killed in a instant.

In the 1900s, circuses were extremely popular and prevalent in the west. During the downfall of the circus industry, “wealthy industrialists and professionals who loved the circus formed the Circus Fans Associations…whose motto, “We fight anything that fights the circus,” summed up its philosophy” (Pfening 24). Ironically, it is proven that “the last twenty-five years of the nineteenth century was the apogee [or the climax] of the American circus” (Pfening 5). People were attracted to the charismatic spirit of the circus during the anguish and despair that came along with the Great Depression.

I really enjoyed going to the circus as a child but, I never knew how it was planned out. After reading my novel I’m surprised at how many problems a circus faces, even though it’s such an exciting place.

Taylor Hansley English III May 23, 2018 MLA Argumentative Essay Should the Circus have ended? For a few years now, the debate on whether or not circus animals are being treated fairly in the industry has caused a lot of uproar. One side believes the circus could safely continue the show with no harm being done. Meanwhile, the opposing side believes wild animals shouldn’t be used for entertainment.

The circus has been around for many years, but in recent years the circus has been getting a bad rap. The most famous circus in the United States, which started under the big top, will be closing after a amazing 146 year run. Barnum and Baily will be closing due to animal rights activists, which fought them in many expensive court battles that ending their world famous elephant acts. For a long time, the circus was a dream for kids to have fun and watch the impossible be done. The first cirus were in Europe, but Americans gave their spin on them which included collapsible tents, so they can move on the go.

When the circus comes to town, children’s eyes boggle with amazement as excitement fills the air. Under the big top, the stunts of humans and animals alike mesmerize and capture the audience's attention. Spectators become astonished at the miraculous accomplishments of the animals, and they are willing to pay massive amounts of money to see exotic creatures outside of their natural habits. However, circuses are not what they seem. “It's a classic image: elephants lumbering trunk to tail.

The stage was the cage and the circus-like atmosphere. The cage represents open-imprisonment, meaning those outside can be amused by the confinement of those inside. The couple was led to the cage by a leash, as if they were savages that had to be restrained (The Couple in the Cage, 0:47). The couple was treated like this – similar to zoo animals – to confirm in people’s minds that those in the cage were not really human, but a lesser species, so it was okay to laugh at and gawk at them. For instance, few people showed outrage when the speaker called the couple “specimen”, a deliberate word used to dehumanize them (The Couple in the Cage, 1:18). The circus-like display, with a speaker drawing in a crowd and tickets in exchange for entertainment, made the display seem unreal and allowed the audience to distance themselves from the treatment of the couple; unfortunately, indigenous people have been treated like disposable, circus animals for hundreds of years by Westerners. The speaker even said, “This display is part of a 500 year tradition of exhibiting indigenous peoples, a tradition first started by Christopher Columbus” (The Couple in the Cage, 2:07). Yet the people in the crowd did not make the connection that they were participating in the

His ideas and objectives are still valued in the circus today. He presented minorities as equals and shed light on their differences, making society see that even people who appear different are special and should be accepted. He exhibited “giants, dwarves, and other so-called human oddities” and presented them all as interesting and different from the common man. The belief among historians is that Barnum exhibited these eclectic collections of people in order to try unite a divided and racist country. Not only do historians believe the Barnum used humans to improve his show, but the animals he used also enhanced his extraordinary show.

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey circus has recently declared the end of their career and disbanded the circus. Since the disbandment an ongoing discussion concerning the circus and its ethics has been widely discussed by many different groups; but disagreement can be most strongly seen between the discourse of animal welfare groups, and the circus performers themselves. The topics being addressed is how these different populations perceives the events surrounding the circus’s disbandment and what is actually more beneficial for the circus animals and the performers in the long run after the greatest show on Earth is over. The discontinuities often seen among these two groups when the circus is discussed are: the languages of unnatural behavior, abuse, the description of culture, sports, art, along with the

According The Wall Street Journal” … Cirque du Soleil, the Canadian company that redefined the dynamics of a declining circus industry in the 1980s. Under conventional strategy analysis, the circus industry was a loser. Star performers had “supplier power” over the company. Alternative forms of entertainment, from sporting events to home entertainment systems, were relatively inexpensive and on the rise. Moreover, animal rights groups were putting increased pressure on circuses for their treatment of animals.” (Murray, 2014) A new era was created transforming the concept of what is a circus today. As the Wall Street Journal described, “Cirque du Soleil eliminated the animals and reduced the importance of individual stars. It created a new form of entertainment that combined dance, music and athletic skill to appeal to an upscale adult audience that had abandoned the traditional circus. (Murray, 2014)

"The towering tents are striped in black and white, no golds and crimsons to be seen. No color at all, save for the neighboring trees and the grass of the surrounding areas." The author uses imagery to explain the character and their predicament. After reading this passage you really get to visualize the scene of the story and how the narrator is standing there, dumbfounded as to why the circus is there, why no one knew about it before it arrived, and why they have such odd hours. It makes me wonder, if the author was writing about such a cheery place as a circus, why would they write it as having a dull exterior and unique opening hours. Perhaps it is foreshadowing onto the plot of the story. The author must have written this entry to relate

The life of a circus animal is hard and demanding. It is not an acceptable way of life for an animal. Circuses would quickly lose their appeal if the public were more aware of their mistreatments of these animals. Many circuses do not have much money and as a result the animals suffer from inadequate care. These animals spend most of their time in small cages used for transportation. The Animal Welfare Act provides cage requirements, but many circuses fail to follow this law. Even the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey circus was cited for 65 violations over a two-year period according to Florence Lambert. When traveling, animals spend hours, even days between sites in confinement..

Animals have been a main focus in circus performances around the world for many centuries; however, in recent history, there have been far more regulations put on the use of these creatures, stemming mainly from how they are treated by both their trainers and the circus as a whole. Whether it be on the federal or local and state-level, there has been a definite increase in the questionable legality of America’s circus industry due to the neglect and abuse of the participating animals, courts’ decisions highlighting the true importance of the issue. These rulings make one ask the question: What types of regulations could be put in place in all circuses to ensure that the animals involved are not abused in the process? In the end, many

The Circus has been an extremely popular form of entertainment during the 20th century. The circus creates an image of drifters and dreamers in the mind. In the 20th century the emphasis on spectacle continued on 3 ring formats.