Written On The Body Stephen Oettermann

I. When unfamiliar guests walk into my room they notice the tattooed men with piercings that I have yet to marry covering my walls, however that is not what gets their attention. [Attention Getter]

Tattoos on the Heart encompasses many themes, but Fr. Boyle predominantly focuses on life and death. In one distinct instance, Fr. Boyle depicts the story of an unnamed sixteen-year-old homegirl who tells him, with such joy, that she is pregnant. Fr. Boyle is unable to hide his disappointment, which leads the homegirl to say “I just want to have a kid before I die.” (90) This narrative was unfamiliar to my own life experiences, which consequently made the story difficult to relate to. Growing up in a middle class neighborhood I was never fully exposed to death that occurs in young adults due to gang violence, as a result I never knew what it was like to genuinely fear for my life or believe that I was going to die before I turned eighteen.

Whenever he gets a chance, he looks at his tattoos, but notices that “the effect was not of one intricate arabesque of colors but of something haphazard and botched. A huge dissatisfaction would come over him…. As the space on the front of him for tattoos decreased, his dissatisfaction grew and became general” (514). He is seeking something greater.

I earned critical praise for work that explored religious and classical themes. I was born in NY and was known for sculpting abolitionist leaders and civil war heros. In 1867 I moved to Rome and used the neoclassical style to voice my concerns about the revolution. My work over the next few decades moved between African-American themes influenced by Catholicism.

Tattoos on the Heart is a novel by Gregory Boyle, a Jesuit priest and the founder of Homeboy Industries, a gang-intervention program. He invites the reader to gain insight into the need for solidarity in our world. With this quest for solidarity, Gregory Boyle invites the reader to develop compassion, to alter the margins, and to gain understanding of unconditional “no matter whatness,” love.

Recently, many people have been conversing about something that happened a lot of years ago; The Holocaust. In the camp Auschwitz, prisoners were tattooed with a set of numbers on their arm. Then, other camps decided to follow and do the same. After The Holocaust, there weren’t too many survivors. Many of the survivors decided to hide their tattoos, while others decided to flaunt them in a way. Since it has been so long, many of the survivors are now dying. There has been arguments about whether their descendants should get tattoos the same as their elders or not. They shouldn’t get them for many reasons.

Millions of families were destroyed by the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel states, “Men to the left! Women to the right!”(29). Those were the words they feared to hear because the kwen it might be the last time they were together. Ms. Doron from the tattoo article says, “To me, it’s a scar”, “The fact that young people are choosing to get the tattoos is, in my eyes, a sign that we’re still carrying the scar of the Holocaust”(15). For some people those numbers revive the past that caused them extremely pain.

Outcasts in society are in need of love and compassion. In the book Tattoos on The Heart by Gregory Boyle, Father Greg gives gang members an opportunity to better themselves by providing them with jobs. Attention makes gang members realize they are worthy.

Tattoos are a source of self-expression, and there are countless of ideas that one can forever ink on their body. There are people whose life story is captured and told by the inking that scatters their physique, yet there are others who believe this is a representation of a bad character. When I began digging, I knew that starting off with an individual's clashing experience with their tattoo would be

Berkowitz, Bonnie. “Tattooing Outgrows its Renegade Image to Thrive in the Mainstream.” The Washington Post. washingtonpost.com, 8 Feb. 2011. Web. 29 Oct. 2013.

Life is not something simple as we often prefer. There are many different approaches and in most instances we will not find the desired fulfillment in any of them. In the short story “Parkers Back” written by Flannery O’Connor we have a multi-faceted view into the life of the primary character O.E. Parker. In addition we see into the life of Sarah Ruth, Parker’s wife and possibly into the life of author Flannery O’Connor, who died shortly after completing this short story. The characters in this story deal with Tattoos from totally different perspectives and get completely different results. Tattoos are the focal point of the story and prominent on many occasions. Without purpose in life people often make bad decisions which impact the

On the most basic level, tattoos acted as a badge of social and cultural differentiation that separated the tattooed from the non-tattooed. On a deeper level, however, social and cultural homogeneity did not unite the tattooed, for the subject matter and aesthetic style of the tattoos created a fault-line that divided the classes. (Caplan, 2000, 148)

The article, “Gericult’s Severed Heads and Limbs: The Politics and Aesthetics of the Scaffold”, by Nina Athanassoglou-Kallmyer reasons that the purpose of Theodore Gericault’s paintings of severed limbs and decapitated heads was his way of criticizing 19th century policies about capital punishment.

Tattooing has been part of the culture and identity of people through history. This type of body decoration was introduced in the Western Society by the British expeditionary and it has been described since then as a “promiscuous traveling sign, moving literally on the bodies of pilgrims, transported convicts, criminals, sailors, and soldiers.” (Rees, Michael,160) This explains the natural association that has prevailed till these days between tattoos and delinquency. This is associated mainly

Samoans believe the circular flying represents the cycles of life.” (Channell,18). In Samoa these tattoos are given to the chief of the family and he is the one who is fully tattooed. The tattooing is a very painful process and is done by taking pieces of sharpen bone and ink and taping the tattoo in with a mallet. The tattoo designs are beautiful designs consisting of many geometric shapes put together in a way they flows. The tattoo is much respected. Once started, it must be completed or it will bring shame upon the young man, and his family. After it is completed, the young mans gains new status among his people. With the receiving of his tattoo, he has now taken on the responsibly of being a man, and also to be an example and leader of his family.