Poem analysis Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Poem analysis - Assignment Example She is a beautiful young woman, but instead of pursuing her dreams, she is dancing and singing as a prostitute. The use of race suggests that her skin color has affected her access to social and economic opportunities. Hughes also connects race to suffering. He mentions that the pianist has â€Å"his ebony hands on each ivory key,† (9), followed by â€Å"[h]e made that poor piano moan with melody† (10). The nearness of these statements implies that the man’s race has something to do with his suffering. He could be experiencing distress because his music cannot have a bigger audience due to his race. He could also be witnessing racism daily that burdens his soul. Besides racial descriptions, these poems have similes that relate to suffering. McKay uses a simile to compare the prostitute’s voice to â€Å"blended flutes† (3). Blended flutes demonstrate the beauty of the woman’s form that is compared to a flute, and the melody of her song that is similar to flute music that can be understood by many people. This simile is important in contrasting the form with the essence of the music, which is no longer blended, but full of pain and sadness. Hughes also uses simile to show that suffering can be performed. If the prostitute can sing and dance and appear like she is in another place, the pianist in Hughes’ poem can also perform, this time with a piano, while he is singing. Hughes says: â€Å"He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool† (13). The pianist looks like a musical fool, but at least, he has music to express his sadness that is deep in his soul. He uses music to unload the burdens of his race. Apart from similes, these poems use musical metaphors to describe how music helps express and reduce people’s innermost anxieties. The prostitute of â€Å"The Harlem Dancer† feels like an object that is consumed because her performance is paid through â€Å"coins† and because her

Small War In The Context Of Law Empire Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Small War In The Context Of Law Empire - Essay Example The small war also comprises of campaigns aimed to subdue the existing guerrillas’ warfare and rebellions in different parts of the universe. In these areas, several soldiers and other defense forces have been deployed to fight back the militants or rebels who are cowards and do not have the courage to battle with militaries in open ground or field. Therefore, small war can be said to involve operations that are extremely unreliable and unpredictable as far as their scope and conditions are concerned. In the real sense, small war can be termed as a civil war in a nation or a civil wrong resulting from feuds and conflicts that prevail in a group or between groups in the society. Most of the people perceive small war as a turning point in the establishment of societal values and concepts. The scope of a small war entails organization of soldiers for irregular warfare information that is very valuable and important in defeating the enemy. The military logistics arrangements are e xhaustively dealt with and in detail. These logistic arrangements include communication lines, transport, and the supply system. In respect to strategies and tactics in place, a sketch of the rules, practice and the principles of a small war is established which will govern the conducts of armies while in war operations against the enemies. In small wars, it very significant to learn the varying hostile mode of war to a certain extent and get conversant with the possible war circumstances to prevail in the course of the battle. The military records have proven that the hostile mode of small wars differs from one battle to another. Therefore, a prior war study will help to come up with suitable strategies and tactics that will assume all forms of war. In a small war, the warring sides tend to have contentious issues that range from economic issues to social issues.

Homeland Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Homeland Security - Essay Example is a department created in the United States to help prevent terrorist attacks within the country, this responsibility is similar to emergency department’s role in dealing with terrorism, and thus it is correct to say the two somehow fit together. National Response Framework (NRF) is one of the various parts of the established National Strategy for Homeland Security (Bullock et al, 2013). NRF’s main work is to formulate and present the principles that would help guide the various factions involved in domestic response to terrorist attack or calamities, either man-made or natural. NRF is very essential to the National Incident Management System whose sole task is to develop principles and concepts that assist in the easy management of emergencies (Walsh, 2012). The principles govern the various agencies such as emergency management and homeland established to deal with emergencies. One of the main purpose of these agencies is to help secure the country in the quickest time possible following an emergency. The understanding of the emergency department helps people assume the responsibility of helping fellow citizens in emergency cases. Knowledge of how emergency department works make people cooperate with the government in different

he Wife of Bath, The Miller and The Pardoner Essay Example for Free

he Wife of Bath, The Miller and The Pardoner Essay The fact that he has a wart on his nose makes him seem an ugly person and this is reflected in his personality and the type of story he is likely to tell. He also has a mouth which is described as a greet forneys. This is to indicate that he is a bit of a gossip and full of hot air. It may also be indicative of the hellish language that he uses as a fire is used to heat a furnace and hell is linked to fire. This type of person would have probably been around quite a bit in Chaucers time in the taverns and inns. He may have seen a few going home in the early hours of the morning and heard them telling rude jokes ad stories at the top of their voices. This would have given him the perfect frame for the Miller as most would have been big burley men. The fact he is described as being so ugly may be partly the view that Chaucer has about millers in general and also based on those people that would have been lying drunken in the street. The Miller has a thombe of gold which makes sense as there would only have been one miller to each village which would mean they could charge what they liked for the flour they made because the people would be highly unlikely and unwilling to go to another village in order to try and get a cheaper price. This therefore makes him seem more realistic and less imagined because Chaucer may have been talking about the one in London and using ugly features of others to make the miller appear ugly. He could have done this as a way of partial revenge to the miller for charging so much. The pardoner is described in the most grotesque fashion of all three characters. He has heer as yelow as wex. This is a particularly nasty way of describing someone that it makes the reader really able to envisage what it looks like. Therefore Chaucer must have based this on somebody that he had seen because otherwise he would not thought to have used such an unusual simile. Chaucer goes on to say I trowe he were a gelding or a mare. This is possibly one of the greatest insults in the English language and hence supports the view that he based his characters on real people. Chaucer clearly dislikes the Pardoner otherwise he would not have written about him in such a manner. Chaucer uses irony to describe him because the Pardoner is carrying around fake relics and selling them to poor priests for a months wages. This is against everything that the church and bible stand for. In my opinion Chaucer was using this as a metaphor for his views on the religious system. This is because most of the church at that time had at least a few corrupt members and this was mainly true of the ministers at Rome. Nearer the end of his description Chaucer is seemingly in awe of the pardoner at how well he is able to tell stories and sing. This is because he finds it so amazing that such a dishonest man can stand in a church and praise god and sell pardons which are essentially sinful in themselves as no one has the power to forgive except for God. This type of person may very well have been met by Chaucer at some point in his life and his utter disgust at the man stayed with him forever. This would undoubtedly influenced his decision as to make the pardoner the most disgusting and unscrupulous members of the pilgrimage. In conclusion I believe that Chaucer based his characters on real people as the descriptions are in such depth that it is hard to think he could have just made them up. On the other hand as a Fiction writer he has to be very creative and would want his audience to believe the characters as much as possible. I am of the opinion that no one can imagine something completely new that they have never seen before or at least something close to it in nature or appearance. Therefore even if his attentions were to create complete characters of fiction subconsciously he would have based them on people that he may have seen walking past him in the street. This is unlikely as I feel he would have closely observed different groups and their attitudes very closely in order to get the right appearance and personality that he wanted for his characters.

Twentieth Century Feminism And Womens Rights

Twentieth Century Feminism And Womens Rights Feminism is defined as the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. Although there were many protests, discussions, writings, and advancements of womens rights dating back to the third century B.C., what is known as the womens movement or feminist movement did not become an organized movement until the mid to late 1800s (11). Three Waves of Feminism A wave metaphor is commonly used to differentiate the three main eras in feminism history. However, the metaphor did not come about until the beginning of the second era. The term Second Wave Feminism was first contrived by Marsha Lear (11) in the late 1960s when women of the Womens Liberation Movement were looking to separate their cause from the movements associated with the first era (1), so the terms first-wave and second-wave were created at the same time. The use of this new terminology also seemed to revive the movement in the public eye after lying dormant for some time. Reference to the third wave began to appear in the mid-1980s as discussions and writings on the relationship of racism to feminism began to appear (11). First Wave Feminism, Mid-1800s to 1920 The First Wave of feminism was the era spanning from the mid-1800s to 1920, mostly in the United States and the United Kingdom. Focus was mainly on legal rights for women, primarily the right to vote. Legalities in the United States and United Kingdom In the United States, the federal constitution originally had no provision for voting rights, so the decision was left to the individual states. (3) Initially, suffrage was granted in some states to tax payers or property owners only. Women did become property owners in some states as early as 1939 (3). However, in the mid-nineteenth century, provisions were also being put in place in most states which expanded enfranchisement to all free adult males only. This left American women with two options to appeal for their rights. They could either appeal to the individual voters in each state to approve legislation, or they could appeal for an amendment to the federal constitution. In Great Britain, women saw three Reform Acts between 1832 and 1884 pass through parliament which all granted suffrage only to men or mens households. (3). The Reform Act of 1832 provided the right to vote to property holding middle class men where it had previously been reserved for aristocracy. The Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884 expanded these rights to the male voter within urban and rural households (2) and (5). With these reforms, the British parliament was satisfied that the majority of citizens was represented. British women were now faced with a complex parliamentary process which required that all legislation pass through Parliament three times before it would be considered. Given the contentment of Parliament that the majority was now represented, this would not be an easy task. Industrial Revolution Brings Change Up to the early nineteenth century, women were in the workplace but primarily as teachers and other such roles that were considered appropriate for women. The onset of the Industrial Revolution gave rise to jobs in factories, mines, and shops from which work related issues also sprang. In the US, various independent issues of womens rights had arisen around the nation but not enough to give a voice to all women. It wasnt until the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 that women would have that voice. Seneca Falls Convention 1848 The five women who called for a meeting on July 19th and 20th, 1848 in the small town of Seneca Falls, NY did so out of the frustration of their own experiences. Much to their surprise, they would find the support of 300 people, including at least 40 men, who had come from a 50 mile radius to hear what they had to say. On that first day of the convention, Elizabeth Cady Stanton began to read the Declaration of Independence aloud to the audience from which the Declaration of Principles was born. (6) The Declaration of Sentiments or Declaration of Principles would become the foundation of the Womens Movement for decades to come, and from this moment in history, the Womens Movement began to grow. Organizations Born Out of Division The end of the U.S. Civil War brought division among suffrage supporters. In 1869, the American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was formed by those who supported enfranchising black males (15th Amendment) and worked at the state level to gain the right to vote. In the same year, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony formed the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) and stood on the platform that all women should be allowed to vote along with black men. This group focused on federal constitutional changes, the message of equality in general, and primarily a feminist agenda. In 1890, these two groups were combined to form the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Stanton as its leader. (3) The British movement started around the time of the Second Reform Act. Parliament Member John Stuart Mill made two attempts to ratify the voting rights. In the first attempt, he brought a petition signed by 1500 women to the House of Commons. In the second attempt, he proposed that the wording of the Reform Bill of 1867 be changed to include people instead of men. Although both attempts failed, these acts became the catalyst for the creation of several womens committees. As was the case in America, British women were divided on how best to approach the issue of enfranchisement. Northern suffragists were more interested in getting back to basics and campaigning for the cause where London-based suffragists were more interested in strategies of parliament. Some believed in a more gradual approach by suggesting, for example, to start by allowing only unmarried women to vote. While others believed that this type of approach only served to punish those women who were not included. By the e nd of the century, most of these organizations became part of the umbrella group known as the National Union of Womens Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) centralized under the leadership of Millicent Garrett Fawcett who was also one of the originators of the first womens organization in Manchester.(3) End of a Century to the Start of WWI The period between the end of the nineteenth century and the start of World War I saw limited movement in womens rights. This gave women on both sides of the ocean the opportunity to form a kinship in their cause through visiting and writing one another about their disappointments and setbacks. The frustration that ensued from the continued delays also gave rise to a more extreme group that would later be known as the Suffragettes. Extremist Movements The term Suffragette was first used as a derogatory term to describe a radical splinter group within the British womens suffrage movement, lead by Emmeline Pankhurst, called the Womens Social and Political Union (WSPU) (7). Theirs was a group which had resorted to breaking windows and harassment to gain attention for the cause. They would later resort to more militant style acts such as bombings and arson. As these women were imprisoned for their law breaking tactics, many of the suffragettes would participate in self-imposed hunger strikes. Initially, the government chose to force-feed the women, but this only served to gain public support for the WSPU. In 1913, Parliament implemented the Cat and Mouse Act which allowed for temporary release of the hunger strikers who would then be jailed again upon their recovery. (7) However, reincarcerating these women proved to be difficult and again raised further public support for the cause. One of the most famous acts by a Suffragette occurr ed at the Epsom Derby in 1913. Emily Davison stepped in front of King George Vs horse and was trampeled in the middle of the race. She would die from her injuries four days later. (7) American supporters of the womens suffrage movement chose not to use the term Suffragette primarily because of the negative connotation that came with the term. Alternatively, they chose to use the term suffragists which was more generic and also could be used by male and female supporters of the womens suffrage movement. After World War I The onset of World War I delayed the womens suffrage movement in both nations as supporters turned their attention to the war efforts. However, this short term concession would lead to long term rewards. In 1917, six states in the U.S. granted women the right to vote in primaries and in municipal and presidential elections. (8) The momentum was building. In 1920, Tennessee would be the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment that gives American women the voting rights that we invoke today. Second Wave Feminism, 1960s through late 1970s In the United States, women began to become concern about the issue of womens liberation which occurred in the late 1960s. They were disappointed with the secondary status given to womens issues on the left and emboldened by the black power rhetoric that had emerged from the civil rights movement; these women decided that its the time for them to take care of their own issues and goals to be heard and show their political concerns. For many of women involved in this movement, the idea those women could work together in the name of women seemed new, exciting, and without much historical precedent. From their perspective, the earlier womens movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries seemed removed and without much relevance to the lives and politics of the new breed of feminists. While many women were certainly aware that a womens movement had existed in the previous century, they looked instead towards the New Left and civil rights movements of the 1960s as the forerunne rs to their feminism (m). Second Wave Feminism began in 1960s through 1990s which actually started with the protest against the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City in 1968 and 1969. Compared with the First Wave, the Second Wave was more focused in the anti-war and civil rights movements and the growing self-consciousness of a variety of minority groups around the world. The New Left was on the rise, and the voice of the second wave was increasingly radical. During this period, sexuality and reproductive rights were dominant issues, and much of the movements energy was focused on passing the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and guaranteeing social equality regardless of sex (a). Second Wave Movement in the USA emphasized on three different movements: Womens movement, Feminist movement, Womens Liberation Movement. Feminists viewed the second wave era as ending with the intra-feminism dispute Feminist Sex War over issues such as sexuality and pornography. The Second-Wave Feminism title was coined by Marsha Lear when women of the 1960s sought to connect their ideas to those as reasonable, and by then noncontroversial, as the right to vote; second wave implied that the first wave of feminism ended in the 1920s. The labels first wave and second wave, then, were created at the same time as a way of negotiating feminist space. These terms gave activist women of the late 60s the double-rhetorical advantage of cultivating new ideas while simultaneously rooting them in older, more established ground. Identifying itself as the second wave revived the movement for the public after seeming to lie dormant for some time. Second wavers are often applauded for paying homage to and drawing from the work of first-wave women, as well they should be. But they did so for reasons far beyond a sense of patriotic duty to honor their fore sisters. The second-wave attention to womens rights, and more importantly, to womens liberation, emerged seemingly out of nowhere and needed to reestablish itself as neither particularly new nor fleeting. The labeling that linked the two periods of feminist movement was a rhetorical strategy that helped give clout to 60s womens activism and positioned it as a further evolution of earlier and larger movement. In 1963, Betty Friedans The Feminine Mystique spoke volumes about the lives that middle-and upper middle-class women were leading. Her arguments affirmed their malaise and motivated them to cure it by moving out of private and into public space, where no such malaise plagued men (n). Womens Liberation Movement Also known as Second-Wave Feminism, the Womens Liberation Movement (WLM) was a grassroots movement that lasted from approximately 1960 through the early 1980s, seeking for economic, political, and social equality for women in the Americas and Britain. The WLM in Britain is generally considered to have begun in 1969, when a confederation of local groups formed the Womens Liberation Workshop, followed in 1970 by the establishment of the National Womens Coordinating Committee. Feminists articulated four main areas of concerns: equal pay, access to birth controls and abortion, expanding educational opportunity, childcare. The United Nations declared 1975 as the International Year of the Woman and the beginning of a decade for Women (3). Gender Inequality in Laws, Culture, and Politics Industrial feminism doesnt fit into the established categories of American feminist history. There was a popular misconception that feminism was reserved for the middle and upper classes. The four working class women activists, Shavelson, Cohn, Newman and Schneiderman pursued the dream through four strategies that became the blue print for working-class womens activism in 20th century USA (b). By 1960, the size of the female labor force had nearly doubled, now enrolling almost one in three women. The majority of women workers, fully 60 percent, were married, over 40 percent of them were mothers of school-age children, and they most often had secured white-collar rather than industrial jobs. (f). In 1979, a group of smart, strong-willed women, fiercely independent, but recognizing the need for collective action, forged a new organization in New York City, United Tradeswomen (UT). White and black, Hispanic and Asian, UT was also occupationally diverse: Entenmann bakery truck drivers, bridge painters, utility workers, firefighters, and hundreds of skilled trades apprentices. From its inception, UT succeeded in providing a space for women to meet and to talk. The majority of women participating in the organization were experiencing significant hardships at work and meeting up with the resistance within their unions. UT fell apart in 1985 as internal divisions grew and the commitment of the original organizers waned (g). Womens Rights In the US, women have adorned American money since the founding of a new nation. Until 1979, though all women depicted were allegorical representations of republican ideals, such as liberty. The US government created the coin to honor Susan B. Anthony and her efforts to guarantee that American women had the right to vote. The US Mint first released the Anthony dollar on July 2, 1979 in the city in which Anthony resided during her politically active years: Rochester, New York (j). Gender Role and Feminism Historically, gender relations have rarely been linked to war and peace, and sexuality has seldom been a component of national security. But in the global War of Ideas, womens oppression and ideological marginalization are ingredients not to be ignored. Womens particular position with children and overseeing the very first steps of education gives them an incredible potential power to initiate and impact massive intellectual change. Taboos about sexual relations are crumbling worldwide, the vivid contrast between mindsets in free societies and the Taliban-like attitude toward sexual freedom on part of jihadists is playing a part in the psychological conditioning of jihadi violence (h). Reproductive and Abortion Rights (Roe v. Wade) Reproductive rights became one of the biggest concerns besides the unofficial inequalities, official legal inequalities, sexuality, family and the work place. Abortion rights were legalized by the US Supreme Court in 1973 following the case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey where the Court affirmed the abortion right granted in Roe v. Wade while permitting further restrictions (d). The practice of abortion is legal in the United States. This seems simple enough, but just like everything about the abortion conflict, there is no easy way to describe abortion law. The law has many sources constitutions, legislative statutes, administrative regulations, courts decisions and to become an expert on abortion law one would have to become familiar with all of them. The foundation of abortion law is the US Constitution as interpreted by The Supreme Court. Constitutional law does not directly regulate abortion. Rather, it sets limits on the powers of the states and the federal government to regulate abortion. The Court has established this constitutional law of abortion through a series of decisions, called case law, especially Roe v. Wade, Doe v. Bol ton, and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Roe v. Wade was a challenge to the constitutionality of the criminal law that Texas enacted in the 1850s. The law prohibited anyone to procure or attempt an abortion except, based on medical advice, for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. Doe v. Bolton was a challenge to Georgias 1968 reform that criminalized abortion except when the pregnancy endangered the life of the mother, there was a rave fetal deformity, or the pregnancy was the result of rape. The Georgia reform was very restrictive. In this case the Georgia legislature had added stringent and cumbersome rules including a requirement that the abortion decision must be approved by a committee and the medical judgment must be confirmed by two doctors in addition to the womans own physician. The justices treated the two cases as a single decision, but it is Roe v. Wade that has become the most famous, the symbol for what is right and wrong (depending on your point of view) with abortion law in the United States (o). Discrimination Against Women From international perspective, in the context of a highly authoritarian and theocratic state in Iran, womens rights have been framed within an Islamist normative discourse, not only by religious and state authorities, but also by some advocates of womens rights. Such strategies have attracted considerable controversy, almost since the immediate aftermath of the Iranian revolution in 1979 (i). In honoring the womens right throughout the world, The United Nation has formed a commission to watch the inequality treatments against women. International Womens Day has become an official day on March 8, 2010 (e). Third Wave Feminism, 1990 to Present Third Wave Feminism began around 1990 and continues into today. It arose primarily out of the experiences of Americans born after 1960 who grew up enjoying many of the advantages second wave feminists had to fight to achieve.(9) It is believed that the third wave picks up where the second wave left off and addresses issues such as racism, oppression, body image, gender categories, and sexuality. In 2004, Unilever PLC with its Dove brand soap launched the Campaign for Real Beauty aimed at beauty stereotypes and self-esteem (10). Emphasis on racism during the third-wave can be seen in the Thomas-Hill hearings in 1991 where a white male running for Supreme Court Justice is accused of sexual harassment by a young black woman. The hearings are credited with bringing public awareness to gender discrimination, and Anita Hill is often refered to as the mother of a new wave of gender discrimination awareness by several feminist groups (12). Issues of the third-wave era can have different meaning for different people around the world. Oppression for a business woman in the United States might mean hitting the glass ceiling for that long awaited promotion. In Afghanistan, it would mean gender apartheid; being stripped of basic human rights and even killed simply because they are women. There are many organization available to address feminist issues on local and global levels. http://feministmajority.org/about/index.asp http://www.feministing.com/about.html#aboutFem http://www.now.org/

El Problem de la Comunicacion y Sus Relaciones con el Lenguaje :: Spanish Essays

El Problem de la Comunicacion y Sus Relaciones con el Lenguaje "La palabra—el habla—es la casa del ser. En su morada habita el hombre. Los pensantes y los poetas son los vigilantes de esta morada".—"Carta sobre el humanismo" M. Heidegger (1) "Las palabras son de todos" Eugenio Montale (2) RESUMEN: Advià ©rtase que no es caprichosa la eleccià ³n de los acà ¡pites que guiarà ¡n el presente trabajo. Ambos, expresan un sentido de verdad respecto de sus propias disciplinas: la filosofà ­a y la poesà ­a, materias singularmente destacadas por M. Heidegger en cuanto a la custodia del instrumento mà ¡s valioso en poder el hombre. Instrumento, herramienta, morada, condensados en la palabra humana que, a su vez, es propiedad de todos segà ºn Montale. La brevedad de las pà ¡ginas que seguirà ¡n intentarà ¡n enforcar los problemas de la comunicacià ³n desde el lenguaje, la filosofà ­a y la literatura, no sà ³lo como hilo conductor para desarrollar el tema, sino como tributo que se rinde a quienes pasaron su vida inmersos en tales problemas, dedicados a resolverlos y a ahorrar al resto de la humanidad las consecuencias à ­ntimas y externas de ese debatirse. Paul Valery nos advirtià ³ que dos abismos no cesan de amenazar al hombre: el orden y el desorden. En la prolongada lucha por alcanzar un digno medio entre ambas catà ¡strofes, la comunicacià ³n—como vehà ­culo universal de intercambio entre los habitantes de nuestro planeta— juega un papel de fundamental importancia: la de poner la casa en orden, por lo menos relativo, para que esa morada sea habitada, Vivida, con decoro. Lamentablemente, prolongados perà ­odos histà ³ricos, se caracterizan por ignorar la sabia advertencia de Heidegger en cuanto a los custodios del habla (poetas y pensadores) quienes no sà ³lo son ignorados sino sencilla y fatalmente barridos de la faz de la tierra o silenciados de modo drà ¡stico para que la comunicacià ³n humana no adquiera sino una babà ©lica confusià ³n proclive a envolver en ella a los hombres y sus conductas. Ordenar la morada heideggeriana sin descuidar su calidez, sin abandonar una à ©tica que partiendo de la palabra misma se continà ºe en los actos, implica un ciclà ³peo trabajo que deberà ¡ asumirse hasta el fin de los tiempos, pues el hombre finito aspira a la infinitud de cierta perfeccià ³n diacrà ³nica. Si el hombre mora en el habla y las palabras son de todos, ello requerirà ¡ no una seleccià ³n, no una plà ©yade de pensadores y poetas, sino toda una humanidad capaz de superar sus propios peligros y de comunicarse en cà ³digos limpios y fà ¡cilmente interpretables.

Shoeless Joe :: essays research papers

1. KINSELLA, W. P. Shoeless Joe. Ballantine books: New York: 1982 2. The story starts when Ray Kinsella, the main character, is talking about his hero Shoeless Joe Jackson who once played left field in baseball. When Ray went to the ball park he was hearing, in his head, the voice of the announcer that was saying â€Å" If you build it, he will come.† Ray started building his dream ball park in his cornfield. He remembered the last time Joe played major league baseball in 1920 and then he was suspended for life, along with seven of his compatriots, for his part in throwing the 1919 World Series. Ray was always sitting in the left field bleachers. After a couple of games were played at the ball park, Shoeless Joe told Ray to start a new league. Joe was going to call up all of his compatriots to play ball. Ray said he would find a friend that never made it to the major league. Ray had travelled to Iowa city to get his friend J.D. Salinger who then went to Fenway park with him. Three weeks later Ray came home, J.D. came with him. J.D. was very impressed when he saw the park. Now, Ray had the best team in the new league. 3. The significance of the title is that Shoeless Joe was one of the greatest baseball players of all times. Shoeless Joe became a symbol of the powerful over the powerless. Shoeless Joe did not play with running shoes because he could not find a small shoe size to fit him. That is why he wears the name Shoeless Joe. 4. The first impression I get from the main character, Ray Kinsella, is that he is a man who loves baseball. He lives for it. He is a great father and husband. He plays ball with his family and he brings them to ball games. He likes to dream. He could sit all day long and dream. He also likes to improve the things that he loves to build. He worked hard at making a better baseball park. 5. Ray’s character does not really have a big transformation. He has to travel to Iowa to see if he could bring his friend to play ball. I think that he displayed some courage. I would not have the courage to do what he did. He is a person that believes in himself.