“White Teeth” by Zadie Smith Essay Example for Free

â€Å"White Teeth† by Zadie Smith Essay In the novel â€Å"White Teeth† Zadie Smith depicts modern society, its values and traditions, hopes and everyday life. This novel is full of different symbols which help to unveil the message of the story and force readers to interpret events and behavior of the characters in a peculiar way. Archie Jones, the protagonist of the novel, a war veteran who tries to overcome depression and psychological pressure caused by war. Thesis Archie likes to flip a coin in moments of indecision which symbolizes his liberation and freedom from social norms and the second chance Life gives to him. A coin symbolizes destiny and fate for Archie. The main change concerns his understanding of the chance and destiny as an invisible hand which rules his life. For Smith, a person has to obey to general rules and law based on traditions and morals. The irony of indecision depicts the gap between expected, traditional, usual things and reality people try to escape. Smith underlines that a coin has double meaning which can symbolize great expectations and hopes, but it can be interpreted as fate and death Archie wants to face. Smith changes this tradition depicting that a coin gives everyone a chance to try his destiny for the worse. â€Å"Solemnly he flipped a coin (heads, life, tails, death) and felt nothing in particular when he found himself staring at the dancing lion† (Smith, 2000, p. 10). Smith leaves it to readers to decide the significance and impact of these manipulations on Archie’s life.   To some extent, symbol of a coin underlines unimportance of life and Archie’s indifference towards death. â€Å"He had flipped a coin and stood staunchly by its conclusions. This was a decided-upon suicide. In fact it was a New Years resolution† (Smith, 2000, p.3). It seems that subconsciously Archie is looking for a death which he has escaped during the war. Smith depicts that this is the most difficult time for all soldiers to come to grips with changes occurred in their society. â€Å"In death as he was in life and all that† (Smith, 2000, p.4). The flip of a coin symbolizes total ignorance of the world and emptiness of the protagonist’s life. Probably, a coin itself is the same thing where a chance determines the destiny of every person. In practice, it is possible and desirable to create new law and values, because new environment forces people to change their personal priorities and morals. It is possible to say that the flip of a coin becomes a kind of religion preached by Archie which influenced life of all people around him. On the other hand, Smith underlines unimportance of the coin which confronted with eternal values and virtues: â€Å"Nor did it lie in gender, faith, their relative ability to dance to a syncopated rhythm or open their fists to reveal a handful of gold coins. The real difference was far more fundamental. It was in the earth. It was in the sky† (Smith, 2000, p. 305). Also, the flip of a coin creates a certain mystery forcing readers to think over the situation and all decisions accepted by Archie. Smith depicts that Life can give â€Å"a chance† to a person to start a new life and overcome tension and depression. Archie meets his second wife the same day when wants to commit a suicide. This situation depicts that â€Å"a chance† determines the life of Archie brining happiness to his wife Clare and future to their family. Smith writes: â€Å"Life wanted Archie. She had jealously grabbed him from the jaws of death, back to her bosom. Although he was not one of her better specimens, Life wanted Archie and Archie, much to his own surprise, wanted Life† (Smith, 2000, p. 6-7). Through the flip a coin the life gives Archie a second chance and â€Å"peculiar† marriage. To some extent, the flip of a coin has afforded readers the opportunity to explore the sense of his unique character and soul at its most profound center. Involved in that is a certain amount of risk and challenge, of tension and attention, a certain pres ­ence that suggests how human beings might become as a people. Heads or tails mean necessity which is used by Archie as an explanation for capacity to seek and achieve the approbation of fellow human beings, and hence to form moral norms and rules of justice as internal and external guides to conduct. It is important to note that indecision does not mean weakness or cowardice of the personality. The flip of a coin unveils true nature of Archie and his world views. War terror and tension have dominated in the society for so long that people are afraid to change something even if their habits are useless. Archie can do nothing but commit himself to laws he finds repulsive if the order of society demands it. Alsana characterizes the human experience as: you go back and back and back and its still easier to find the correct Hoover bag than to find one pure person, one pure faith, on the globe (Smith, 2000, p. 196). This phrase vividly portrays Archie’s thoughts and hopes: the flip of a coin helps him to find his faith and truth of life in a unique and peculiar way which seems strange to all people around him. Smith portrays that a chance plays more powerful role than will or desire directing Archie and people around him. It is possible to say that Life sets certain limits on desires and whishes of Archie, and his role in lives of other characters: Clare and his daughter Irie,   Samad Iqbal and his family. Through the character of Archie and the flip of a coin, Smith goes beyond traditional structure interpretation of life and destiny based her work on imagery and superstition of the protagonist. The flip of a coin unveils that what humans needed is order, and that to achieve it they must rely on their destiny and chance. Archie has to condition to reality using his own way and relying on fate and choice. He can blame nothing but his Life. The whole span of Archie’s development, from the explosive emotions of his youth to the skeptical mysticism of his middle age, is encompassed by the desire to play a game with his life and death. Archie fits very closely in with these ideas; he is a man trapped by a conventional notion of what is right and ‘wrong’. The flip of a coin is liberation from outside world limited by traditions and stipulated norms, low morals and false values. References Smith, Z. White Teeth. Random House. 2000.

Negative Effects of False Media Images :: Argumentative Persuasive Topics

The Negative Effects of False Media Images      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Since the birth of communication, media has been used to convey information to those willing to absorb it. Beginning with publications and simple spoken words, and soaring to new heights in the twentieth century with radio, television, and the internet, media have been made accessible to people in every aspect of their daily lives. With such a strong hold on modern society, mass media have been able to shape popular culture and often influence public opinion. However, when abused, the power of media can harm the general population. Biased media tend to make people strive to be someone else's idea of perfect while subconsciously ignoring their own goals. Stereotypes formed by the media that include thin, tanned women, and wealthy, muscular men have led to a decline in self-acceptance. The majority of media today often present the perfect body to the public, hoping that consumers will strive to achieve fitness using a certain product or idea. While this form of adv ertising may somewhat increase a product's market share, many people suffer from inner conflicts as a result of failure to achieve the body of a top athlete or fashion model. Along with emotional conflicts, those influenced by the media have encountered physical problems, including bulimia, anorexia, and the employment of harmful dietary plans. Unless reality is discerned from what is presented in certain media, some people will continue to suffer. Consumers could find the truth more easily if media offered products advertised by normal people without all the extra glamor. In addition to this, if the public could view advertising only as something to get one's attention and not a portrayal of how one should look, there would be fewer problems. Until either is accomplished, the negative effects will be felt by the vulnerable, and companies will continue to make their money. Those consumers given a false impression about a product through various forms of media are the ones who suffer most from our society's portrayal of the perfect body. After being influenced by a television commercial or a magazine pictorial, certain people in this world will purchase an item hoping that the same success shown in the medium will be had by them as well. The truth of the matter is that this hardly ever happens. Every day, ugly people wear sensual cologne, and slow runners wear Carl Lewis track shoes.

Year One Ba-Hons Photography Image Analysis

Photographs are one of the media or instruments of visual representations. It is an embodiment of visual elements which appear as symbols and are linked together to convey several meanings. According to McLean (1973), they are pictures which have many characteristics and attributes in common with other images (quoted in Noth 1995: 461). They play an important role, along with film, in broadening the visual field for examination and analysis and in molding critical approaches to visual representation (Chaplin 1994: 80). This paper aims to present an image analysis of Nick Ut’s Trang Bang (1972). It will narrate a brief biography of the artist then it will reveal the photograph’s visual elements and their corresponding meanings. It will also identify the underlying symbols behind the image and demonstrate their impact on the society. Furthermore, it endeavors to express and to show the implication of photographs with regards to visual culture and visual literacy. Nick Ut (b. March 29, 1951- ) whose real name is Ut Cong Huynh is a Vietnamese photographer. His photography career begins when he has been introduced by his mother to the Associated Press office in Saigon; he is 14 years old then. The occurrence on the rainy day of the 8th of June, 1972, the epoch when the Americans and South Vietnamese invaded Cambodia, draws attention with his career when he shoots Kim Phuc—a nine year old girl—running and blaring naked in down Route 1 (Ut 2007); the photograph is entitled as T rang Bang. Trang Bang, a gelatin silver print, depicts the June 8, 1972 event when the children and their families run away and flee the village of Trang Bang down Route 1; their bodies are being burned and seared by napalm (Faas and Fulton n. d. ). The image encompasses five children that are running and screaming and behind them are militant troops, walking after the terrified kids. The focus of the picture is the naked little girl who is squealing. Figure 1 Children Fleeing an American Napalm Strike, Trang Bang, June 8, 1972 Her stretched arms bestow a line element in the image which illustrates balance and symmetry. The eyes of the spectator will usually fix on the dead center due to the strong and powerful expression of Kim Phuc, revealing an excruciating pain. Nevertheless, if the focus of the picture will be given to the screaming boy on the foreground whom is said to be Kim Phuc’s brother Phan Thanh Tam, technically speaking, Ut demonstrates the rule of thirds in his masterpiece due to his manipulation to the placement of the subject which is off the center; therefore the eyes of the spectator will definitely turn and fix with the other elements in the whole picture per se. He also displays a shallow depth of field in the photograph because only the subjects of interest or focus are enhanced—the shrieking and running children, the other element—the troops—is quite out of focus due to the blurry details of the figures. The black smoke on the background gives a strong contrast in the picture. The said photograph is a historical account that records and synthesizes the incident of June 1972. It analyzes and demonstrates the notion of horror and agony during wars which can be pulled out from the facial expressions of the children especially Phan Thanh Tam’s. He summarizes and encapsulates the terror, fear and affliction of the people during the Vietnam War (Pyle 2000). That image can imply a lot of things if it will be based to John Berger’s Way of Seeing theory (1972): it is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it. The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe (Berger 1972: 7-8). With that, it can be hauled that whatever the interpretation or analysis of the spectators with the image, it will still be anchored on what he or she knows regarding the event that has transpired in Vietnam during the year 1972. The photograph is a representation of the reality that it portrays (Noth 1997: 46). However, Eco (1984) disagrees because according to him, a photograph can lie (quoted in Noth 1997: 461), by which Berger (1984) states that the result of the treatment and manipulation of the reality is that to a definite level, â€Å"the photographer creates the reality of the photograph (quoted in Noth: 461). Nevertheless, in the case of Nick Ut’s Trang Bang, it cannot be implied that the photographer has altered and manipulated the reality that he has documented during the occurrence in 1972 because the reproduction of the image, which have been placed in newspapers, magazines, etc. , creates a different perspective from the original photo that is taken by Ut. The reproduction delineates a cropped image of the original (Look at figure 1 and 2). Figure 2 Napalm Bomb Attack, Vietnam It shows that the original, which has been signed by Ut, encompasses other elements in the picture, for instance, the official member of the press who looks like fixing his camera, the lines on the background which probably signifies the napalm. The manipulated image appears more closely to the spectators and constructs a more focused representation of the event. Because of the reproductions, Ut cannot be blamed for the cropped photo because of the intervention of the press with regards to the dissemination of the image to narrate the historical event. It is definitely the press’ responsibility as to how they will broadcast and transmit the information with wide, visual consumers all over the world. According to Gillian Rose in her Visual Methodologies (2001), the novelty and advantage of photography branch out from its most evident potential: it is about rendering that particular moment in time (quoted Mirzoeff 1999: 67) by which Ut demonstrates in his Trang Bang. In accordance with what he said during an interview, â€Å"the girl was running with her arms out. She was crying, ‘nong qua! Nong qua! (Too hot! Too hot! ). She had torn off all her clothes. When I saw she was burned, I dropped my camera beside the road. I knew I had a good picture. I got her into our van and took her and the family to the Cu Chi hospital. † (quoted in Pyle 2000). Moreover, his magnum opus implies that photography makes achievable ways of seeing what is unimaginable then (Mirzoeff 1999: 68). It does illustrate that the language and expression of the photograph is to combine naturalism and realism. The artifact then evolves to be reality (quoted Molyneaux 1997: 80). Nick Ut’s Trang Bang may be manipulated or not, it still conveys a scheme of meanings and symbols. The implication of an image is created from an interaction of a myriad of schemes and codes. A photograph is not a realistic illustration of what is real in spite of its appearances. It is a material that has been produced in an elaborate manner and approach of production and has been dispensed, circulated and consumed by a set of social relations (Forrester 1996: 140). Burgin (1982) has argued then that a photograph presents itself as something that cannot be disagreed with in which he states as â€Å"an offer you cannot refuse† (quoted in Forrester 1996: 142). Trang Bang being an object of representation communicates with its spectator about the Vietnam War that happens in mid-1972. Nick Ut, as one of the war photographers, has to deal with the lack of viewing space for his work because he is confined and restricted to what he sees in the lens compared to other artists who can demonstrate an array of symbols and emotionally-driven and affecting scenes however, war photographers are offered with revolutionizing and altering the reality into an allegorical and symbolic masterpieces (Marien 2006: 46).

Music is an art that has been in this world for tens of...

Music is an art that has been in this world for tens of thousands of years and has proven its abilities to bring people together and sometimes even make people happy. Although the jazz era ended almost a century ago, this time influenced by Louis Armstrong was a huge cultural shift that still remains in our society in which African-Americans are a vast part of our music industry amongst pop, rap, reggae, and more. Jazz was a unique form of music, there had never been anything like it before. It was rebellious, rhythmic, and it broke the rules- musical and social. It started a musical revolution, â€Å"With its offbeat rhythms and strange melodies, jazz was blamed for everything from drunkenness and deafness to in increase in unwed mothers.†Ã¢â‚¬ ¦show more content†¦Armstrong once said, â€Å"Jazz is played from the heart. You can even live by it. Always love it.† That is exactly what Louis did, he lived by it, he loved it, and he influenced others to always do the same. Even in the last decade of his life, Armstrong continued to entertain people just as he had the previous four decades of his life. He often performed with a number of different musical groups, and is said to have â€Å"revolutionized† the jazz world with his introduction of the extended trumpet solo. He grew as a person and developed jazz into what it is now, â€Å"Louis Armstrong had a very long and successful career. He influenced the direction of jazz music and was the first ever â€Å"super star† of jazz music.† Louis Armstrong was one of the most influential jazz musicians in the 1920’s and is an essential factor of the thriving music industry today. Jazz opened a huge doorway for African-Americans in the music industry. Before Louis Armstrong, they never would have been accepted in music in society and potentially not have received equal rights in the future. Jazz was a new style of music that most people had never heard before, making it tha t much more interesting. Jazz taught people a new way to express themselves, with deep rhythms and smooth beats. With jazz being so multicultural, it gave people a new perspective on integrating African-Americans into society, which led America into theShow MoreRelatedThe Importance of Speaking a Second Language712 Words   |  3 PagesSecond languages are vital. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have the ability to speak ten out of the near seven thousand languages that are spoken in the world today? It is certainly evident that it would be pretty astonishing but also undoubtedly complex and mind-boggling. From Afrikaans and French, to German and Swahili, foreign languages are responsible for one thing; enabling easy communication and the ability to interact with others in whatever language you may speak. In today’sRead MoreTupac Shakur: A Brief Life Story1779 Words   |  7 Pagesbrought into the world on June 16, 1971 in the beautiful state of New York City . 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