Social Criticism Essay

Social Criticism in the Hollywood Melodramas of the Fifties In the early 1950s the films of Douglas Sirk led the way in defining the emerging genre of the Hollywood melodrama. "Melodrama" strictly means the combination of music (melos) and drama, but the term is used to refer to the "popular romances that depicted a virtuous individual (usually a woman) or couple (usually lovers) victimized by repressive and inequitable social circumstances" (Schatz 222). Sirk's films were commercially successful

Literary criticism refers to the study of how literature is evaluated and interpreted. Literature is a common aspect of the life of scholars, and we need to understand and then evaluate the texts we read to get the intended message. There are a number of literary criticism theories that can be used in evaluating literature work. The different theories are applicable differently depending on the text in question. For instance, the feminist criticism theory is a theory that is used to analyze texts

Fahrenheit 451 is currently Bradbury's most famous written work of social criticism. It deals with serious problems of control of the masses by the media, the banning of books, and the suppression of the mind (with censorship). Even though Bradbury published this novel in 1953, it predicted a major outlook on how the future’s society would turn out. Technology plays a big part in how we all function in our everyday lives. With technology, everything is much more convenient, and everyone has a much

in her novels gave dependable representations, of the quandary of the women of the contemporary society. An essential theme of the novels of Bharati Mukherjee is racism as an important feature in oriental and occidental culture. The novels are the social analysis, where the socio-political condition of both east and west are considered as the chief subject. Bharati Mukherjee is a past winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. Bharati Mukherjee rejects the concept of minimalism,

fragments and lack of punctuation frequent the book). Morrison’s including elements of jazz is not only an homage to the African-American experience in itself—the African-American community is accredited with creating and developing jazz—but it’s its own social commentary; Beloved rejects the constructs of traditional English grammar in the same way jazz rejects traditional music. Both jazz and Beloved on the surface appear incoherent and meaningless, unorganized and chaotic. Upon further inspection, however

The Land of Cockaygne, as the poem is titled, has not been given the credit it rightly deserves as an example of a politically-challenging, pre-More utopia; it is not merely an example of a peasant’s bizarre and bawdy musings, but both a serious social critique of medieval hierarchical tendencies and a biting moral satire of fourteenth-century religious hypocrisy. The Cockaygne tradition is one with an extensive history. Although its origins are unknown, peasants in nearly every country of

Social Criticism in The Yellow-Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman Traditionally, men have held the power in society. Women have been treated as a second class of citizens with neither the legal rights nor the respect of their male counterparts. Culture has contributed to these gender roles by conditioning women to accept their subordinate status while encouraging young men to lead and control. Feminist criticism contends that literature either supports society’s patriarchal structure or

Huckleberry Finn is set, provided a great deal of fodder for social criticism for many authors during and after the period. During the antebellum period, the institution of slavery was maintained with increasing hostility in the American South, where legislators and civilians alike worried about abolition and its potential ramifications. Ever since its foundation, Southern society had been dependent upon slavery as the bedrock for its economy and social mores, which in turn, was dependent upon the racism

to work together. Mark Twain wrote the novel with the expectation that it would reach a diverse group of readers. However, due to its societal criticisms and deeper meanings, the novel is intended for older, and more experienced people, so that they would be able to grasp the theme more easily than others. Mark Twain’s novel conveys a message of criticism to society during that time period. The narrative displays ways of thinking that is sometimes forced upon you. This is present when examining Huckleberry

“to take a big fat wrecking ball to one of the surefire delights of world theater -- well, that requires energy and invention….. Oliver Parker does that here” says Mike Lasalle of Chronicle Movie Critic in his review of Oliver Parker’s film adaptation of “The Importance of Being Earnest”. While a bit harsh, Lasalle isn’t completely embellishing his disapproval of the movie. In Oscar Wilde’s original play, the banter between the characters is witty, the scenes are appropriate and the romance is kept