Propriety and passion:

Which is more important in a person’s life?

E. D. Forster’s novel A room with a view presents the battle between what is established by society of how a person should be and act and the pursuing of personal passions and dreams even if you are against the rules of society. James Ivory’s film based in the mentioned novel is a close adaptation of the novel: that even divide the movie into chapter with the same names as the novel. Two big themes are present in the plot of the novel as well in the film: propriety and passion both themes are the axis of the novel.

Lucy Honeychurch the main character of the novel is open to a new world different that the one she used to lived when she and Miss Charlotte travel to Italy. Lucy is used to the properness of Britain when she arrive at Italy she meet George Emerson a free spirit young man that fall in love for Lucy. But there’s Cecil Vyse a person that a man is suppose to be at the time proper and sophisticated however he show a lack of respect and kindness toward others that don’t share his royal like knowledge, position and customs. George teaches Lucy that being proper and cultured distant you from other persons and it prevails you of natures wonders and real affective relations. Mr. Emerson is a liberal person that is found not a gentleman by others for his not proper manners. Mr. Emerson helps Lucy to find herself Mr. Emerson and George are the characters that help Lucy develop her character in terms of freedom and follow her passions.

When Lucy returns to her home to Britain Cecil propose marriage to her. Lucy accept the proposition because is the proper thing to do for a lady when a man of high social status propose marriage. And that’s the dream of every mother that her daughter marry a man with good propriety, sophisticated and with a high social status. Cecil sees Lucy as a material gain a commodity unlike George that he really loves Lucy and treat her as a companion.

In the film we can see the mentioned comparison between Cecil and George in many scenes for example: the scene where George, and others are playing tennis, Lucy invite George to play and he decline the offer and said he prefer his book. And what about the scenes of George kissing Lucy and Cecil kissing Lucy; you can see that George and Cecil are completely opposite persons Cecil lacks the passion and desire to live that George has. The film show all the procedure that Cecil make to kiss Lucy on the other part George just go for it he didn’t ask permission. If Lucy marries Cecil he would have made Lucy’s life unhappy. The only way Lucy took out all her frustrations was when she was playing piano, even the song that Lucy plays are expressive showing the passionate side of Lucy playing Beethoven.

The film did a great representation of the values, personal appearance of the characters; settings were beautiful displaying what Cecil is missing and the cast of actors. And specifically the way Lucy interacts with the significant characters to shape to what she learns from the others.

All that accomplished in a year

Everyone need help and friendship in some point our lives. Harry, Ron and Hermione grow, learn and mature with each other. Their friendship is one of the keys to help them succeed, mature and save the day. In the transition from novel one to two you can see the three characters developing emotionally and more actively in the novel. Harry, Ron and Hermione share many qualities which important to the plot of the novel.

Harry, Ron and Hermione share the same passion in both novels for the wizard world and Hogwarts. You could tell it by the interest in everything about Hogwarts. The sorting hat sees the same qualities in them and why he places them in the Gryffindor. They share an immense friendship with Hagrid and Dumbledore. And they don’t get along with Professor Severus Snape.

Harry in the first novel is lost in a world that he even dream about that exist. Harry in the first novel is learning who he is, who are his parents and what is teach in the first year at Hogwarts. Harry has a lack of confidence in the first novel.

Ron Weasley in the first novel is present a little scare, because his older brothers are in the school and they are doing well, he wonder how he is going to fit in the finest school of witchcraft and wizardry.

Hermione Granger in the Sorcerer stone is an intelligent and very educate girl that is very confident of her knowledge and skills. She is a straight girl that didn’t break any rules and never go against her principles, until she meet Harry and Ron.

Harry through the first novel thanks by Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and Dumbledore developed a confidence and courage by the friendship and family love he never had. Thank to that is why Harry face Voldemort and defeat him.

Ron through the first novel start a strong partnership and gets rid of his fears and show plenty of courage in the chess game, when he sacrifice himself to stop Voldemort from getting the sorcerer’s stone.

Hermione through The Sorcerer’s stone develop much faster than the other boys. With her intellect she manages to solve problems traps and puzzle. She break the rules to find out who Flamel is, all the spells she use to help them on their quest.

In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Harry, Ron and Hermione show a different way to act from the beginning of the novel. When Ron steal the car to pick up Harry and when the portal of the station failed and they used the car again. Ron also is more aggressive and active when he sees two of the most important person in danger. In the second novel we see more confidence in each characters. Harry fell in home again at Hogwarts and with another victory over the evil Voldemort, making him feel that he really is who the people say he is. Hermione now is who do the most risky thing, like the polyjuice potion and enter the restrict areas of the library to find out what creature is the one responsible for the attacks. They make an excellent team. That’s because every one of them has different abilities. Each abilities helps them to solve the problems that trouble them. Hermione is intelligent and the brain of the group. Ron has the strategy to attack. And Harry has the courage to face the enemy and defeat him. Every one of them is an important piece in wizard chess. On the white side Dumbledore and on the dark side Voldemort. If they didn’t work together from the beginning they wouldn’t defeat Voldemort.

Harry, Ron and Hermione help and complement each other. Without one of them they wouldn’t develop and mature the way they did. They change for good, to make their friendship more strong, build qualities and to free the world from an evil sorcerer.

Command and conquer

J.K. Rowling in her book series Harry Potter presents us an enchanting, magical and mysterious world. Her first book of the series Harry Potter and the sorcerer’s stone, an incredible bestseller and multi award winner book.

The book is fill with many incredible stuff, from the beginning when Dumbledore steal the light of a street lamp, to the end, powers of the sorcerer’s stone. But the one that more amaze me is the wizard chess. Wizard chess is like our (muggle) chess, the pieces are the same, move the same and the board is the same. The only thing that’s not the same is that the game pieces are alive and they fight when it time to attack, when they are attack they are destroyed. ( which made it a lot like directing troops to battle199). Making the game more interesting and intense for the players. When I reed the book and discover the wizard chess, the normal chess change for me to an unexciting game with no fun. I still like chess but wizard chess far much better. The wizard chess involve you in the game so much you really think you are in the game fighting to kill the king.

Hogwarts is all about magic, wizard chess involve some magic but intelligence is what all is about. Harry and Ron are very involve into wizard chess; they play a lot in holidays. Ron is teaching Harry how to play it. Ron is one or the best wizard chess player in Hogwarts. All he need to do is develop a strategy and make the moves and win ( “Yes...”said Ron softly, “it’s the only way…I’ve got to be taken”. “That’s chess!” “Yougot to make some sacrifices! I take one step forward and she’ll take me-that leaves you free to checkmate the king, Harry!”283). Definitely wizard chess is an important game in the novel. As a game and the plot. The entire novel is like a chess game. Harry, Ron, Hermione, Hagrid and Dumbledore are pieces, while Malfoy, Crabbe, Doyle, Quirrell and Voldemort are the enemies. The troops of good are command by Dumbledore, he give Harry, Ron, Hermione clues, and help them with the invisible cloak to move by move defeat Voldemort evil plan to come back with a body.

Voldemort use Quirrell to make his moves, try to kill Harry at the quidditch game, slay the defenseless unicorns to drink their blood to keep Voldemort alive and to know how to pass all the security and get the sorcerer’s stone.

On the other hand Dumbledore advise the boys and help them give Harry the invisible cloak. On holiday he let Harry use the mirror of Erised and told him how it works. For a later occasion he has to use it. The nimbus two thousand for the Quidditch games. Dumbledore even he tells Harry he doesn’t need an invisible cloak to be invisible (I don’t need a cloak to become invisible 213). That tells us that he is watching every move they make and he is not a bit mad of they are doing, even we can think he is sometime with them when they are breaking school rules.

Now we are in the final moves in the game. Professor Quirrell succeed in making Harry, Ron and Hermione think that the one who want to steal the stone is Professor Snape. Quirrell learn how to pass all the traps on the way to the Sorcerer’s Stone, he is almost there. Harry, Ron, and Hermione find the way to pass Fluffy and get on the way to the stone before Quirrell get it. They pass the plant, pass the flying keys and there they are in a wizard chess where they are one of the pieces on the board. Ron manages to dominate the game and he saw the strategy, sacrifice for the other to save the stone, very brave of him. The other room, fire and bottles to their doom or to the next room Hermione solve the riddle and Harry went to the final room where fate awaits for presence. There they found that was not Snape. Quirrell couldn’t find the stone and there’s Dumbledore ultimate move, the checkmate to Voldemort. From early in the novel or game, Dumbledore teach Harry how to use the mirror of Erised. Dumbledore make an early strategy that would secure the triumph over Voldemort.

Dumbledore like Ron make strategies to succeed. Without any of Harry, Ron, Hermione or Dumbledore they would not make it. Like a game of chess you need all the pieces, even the pawns are a valuable piece in the way to succeed your purpose. Yet the “king” the great wizard Dumbledore needs help from pawns like Harry, Ron, and Hermione who did an excellent work and save the day. Until Hogwarts back in session!....

This is the end…

In the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and the movie Apocalypse Now directed Frances Ford Coppola there are two characters that can be compared. Even though the movie is based on the novel, the movie is very distant from the novel, but retains many primary elements of the novel. These two characters I'm talking about are Georges Antoine Kurtz from the novel and Colonel Kurtz from the movie. Both characters are key to their somewhat similar stories. In fact I think that both characters are equivalent in meaning and effect to the story. Because both were powerful persons in respective environment and around them revolves the plot and the climax of the story.

The two characters suffered from illness Kurtz from jungle fever and Col. Kurtz from malaria both diseases I think are the same back then at the time of the novel people didn’t have the medical knowledge that we have now and I think that jungle fever is the same as malaria. Both Kurtz characters were powerful persons that in the jungle were respected and feared by their enemies. Both figures were radical and committed in their way of thinking and made them won the respect of who surround them. The meaning of the characters is also the same both characters justify the actions that condemn them. In example in Apocalypse Now Col. Kurtz says that moral terror and horror are necessary to other persons outside conflict and both Kurtz figures help developing the characters of Marlow and Willard respectively to their story both admire Kurtz but they really knew them then their persona change them. Willard and Marlow saw the world with different eyes when they meet Kurtz.

My opinion is that both stories are very similar they are not the same because the movie is other context. Back then to Conrad the European colonization was the darkness and for Coppola the Vietnam war was the darkness of their time.

Project Mayhem

strong message in the book and in the movie, these lines prove my point. “You are not how much money you have in the bank. You aren I found out that in the classroom. This is the most radical book I have read in my years in the university.

This book has some current issues that are affecting our today’s way of life. Like consumerism, the molding of person to be in the desired shape for society, and the recent issue of demascunization (I think I just invented this word) of the man, women removing male characteristics and turned men more feminine.

As for the movie Fincher did a great job transmitting the text into a movie. I guess was a hard work to transcribe a non linear text and plot to a movie that result successful in that matter. The book and the movie really left me thinking amazed with the thoughts the book- they are in the movie too, but in a book you can reflex more on what you have read in the movie people tend to focus more on the visual more that what it is spoken- and the movie for the sequence and the stile of the movie. A not ordinary book deserves a not ordinary movie.

I really identify with this movie because I am in my own war against the establishments of society. We didn’t have the fight club, but every day after school we were wrestling with a bunch of friends; with steel chairs, ladders, jumping of the roof to a stack of old mattress that was our ring it was back yard brawling.

To what Project Mayhem concerns, almost the same friends of the wrestling most of us play in bands and we travel around the island to the gigs on the road, drunk, we start vandalizing (breaking car glasses, throwing the garbage can to the streets and the thrash back inside the house, ect.), stealing the equipment from other bands getting wasted, fighting with other people. I don’t like to be like the most macho man in the world is just, we want fun. Some irrational fun like my friends from the classroom would say I don’t agree with them because they are one with the flow and few others like to be against the flow no matter the consequences. Normal people don’t rise above they stay in mediocrity and yes I have a little of Maquiavelo’s way of thinking. Maybe all people are right and I’m not, that is the way I am. This is a very strong message in the book and in the movie, these lines prove my point. “You are not how much money you have in the bank. You are not your job. You are not the car you drive or the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis! You are the all singing, all dancing crap of the world.” HELL YEAH!!!. These Words with light. Said by Mister Tyler Durden himself the other personality of the average men sick of monotony and sick being own by our own things this person, the main character, is the nameless average working guy; with no life and no death in a perpetual insomnia until some Tyler take over control of the life.

Creation of live

In Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus the novel present some controversial themes like creating life, playing god’s role, the right to take a live, social rejection and revolutionary science procedures. This novel made a strong influence in horror movies so it is that are more than 10 Frankenstein influenced film. In 1994 Kenneth Branagh did a version of Frankenstein called Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein the intention of the movie was to stick as closely as possible to the literary source. The director and writers changed some parts of the plot, but the film still resembles to Shelly’s novel.

The creation of live or the restoration of it is a goal that mankind has been seeking for centuries. Reanimation in other words is what is sought in the plays. The definotion of reanimation refers to alleged supernatural phenomena in which the souls of deceased persons reinhabit their dead bodies and return to this world, usually to complete unfinished business. Science since Shelly’s time is looking for revolutionary ways of achieving live. In both plays victor is experimenting with revolutionary sciences in his time. Galvanism is one of the sciences use in the play. Shelley had a lot of science knowledge and her personal life was in touch with it. Galvanism is the contraction of a muscle that is stimulated by an electric current. Aldini's experiments, includes attempts to revivify dead bodies, were sometimes carried out before the conferences in an almost theatrical atmosphere. Those spectacles were performed on humans and ox heads produced repeated, spasmodic movements of facial muscles, arms, and legs. He stimulated the heads and trunks of cows, horses, sheep and dogs. Aldini experiment with human bodies after the execution of them. Galvanism influence Shelly for the reanimation part of the novel which in the movie we are analyzing in this essay is modified with other types of procedures. In the novel Victor waits to a night with a electric storm to obtain the electricity from a lightning to reanimate his creation. In the movie Victor use electric eels to generate the power the monster need to become alive. The movie version also presents Frankenstein in a pool with amniotic fluid which this doesn’t happen in the novel and present the part were the monster became alive something that in the novel is presented with a spark that reanimates. In both plays Victor left the monster in the laboratory after is reanimated and regret what he had created. When he returns to the laboratory he found that the Monster is gone.

The monster learns the human language and behavior imitating a family he help with their harvest. In the novel the monster develop how to speak and read eloquent English watching a mother teaching her daughters through the window of their home. The monster educates himself with now classical books by Plutarch, Milton among others. The narrative of the monster is not present in the movie avoiding the conversations that formed his persona

Caribbean Mother

The colonial times in the Caribbean were though. They times that the family wasn’t how it is portrait today. The mother is the center figure in the family because the father figure was working or left the family. So the mother takes the role of mother and father the raise the family.

Throughout the short story part of the semester of Caribbean literature, almost all stories the mother plays an important prominent role in the society, community, family and of course the story. By personal experiences from was I lived when I was a kid there are mothers with different behaviors. There was the loving passive mother, the strict mother, the single mother, the crazy mother and the grandmother among others. So were the short stories there were mothers with different behavior.

In the story Brackley and the bed by Samuel Selvon even though Teena was not a mother she is a woman and plays the role as a mother to Brackley. A woman/mother possessive who change and bother Brackley’s life in his own words. In my opinion this kind of woman become undesirable like in the next story I will mention.

In the story Girl by Jamaica Kincaid the mother was conditioning her daughter to be servant to her husband, perpetuating machismo. In this story the father is a present figure. In this story the daughter would have to wish her mother was absent by imposing all those rules. It was a bad mother according now but, in that time that speech saves her from a few bruises because I think back then the husbands were more abusive than they are now with all the protective laws and the slow improvement in the mentality of the society.

In the story Mother by Velma Pollard the mother is an absent figure, the mother figure is taken by the grandmother. Her mother left her to emigrate in the search for a job. The daughter waits all years the arrival of her mother but all she get is a barrel of clothes and money. The classic escape from the homeland to the states and find out the life you think you would have is worse than the one you had before. The wish she had her mother instead of the money she was sending her.

In the story Mother by Jamaica Kincaid the story is crazy, man I cannot understand a bit only the part were the daughter wished her mother was dead. And that the daughter grew with her mother and they fine one moment and in the other they were separated, like they get along for periods of time and others don’t.

The mother figure in Brackley and in Girl is stricter mothers than in the others stories they both want to teach how to do things so the people around sees you with good eyes. The only story with the father figure present is in Girl cause in the other stories the father is gone. Beside the attitude of each one of the mothers there is an undeniable fact that is that mother figure is the most important figure in the formation of the person she have the hand to mold the clay that in the end of her work would be an adult.

Bands and record labels: The exploitation continues...

All that is spoken in this paper is my personal experience and people meet in the music scene. When a band starts following the love and art for music they have to decide the style of music they will play, the message and the audience their music will appeal (pathos). With the basic decisions made then the inspirational part comes. When the music is complete the bands have to make a name for themselves with live shows. At this point is when the members in the band or artist became addicts, for the applause, admiration and respect from the audience. For our own memories, for the fans and to spread the music a record is invaluable and sentimentally, so this is the next step. With many sacrifices the record is completed. For many, our band and other fellow bands our dream is to perform outside our country with no lack of respect to the country that sees you grown. And to achieve that dream you got to have money (by savings or being rich) or via a record deal. And by that dream is where the record labels take advantage from. There are two kinds of artists or bands. The ones that are in for money and girls and the ones that are in for the love of the art of music. Bands that even without pay they travel everywhere to play just spread the music and give the fans what they wanted. This is real love to the art. It’s not just in music; in other arts occur the same situation.

The record label in the search for new bands hired a young person that is involved in the music scene with a good reputation and has almost the same musical background of the bands the label want to sign this person is an A&R which stand for artist and repertoire. Task of an A&R is to represent a face that the bands can trust and to select the songs that a band would record in their cd. The A&R is the first contact that the band have with a label they promise the bands the moon and the stars to make the band to make a verbal agreement or a deal memo this the way they call the agreement. If the band didn’t sign any contract at all they aren’t able to do any other deal because of the agreement that’s who the label takes a position of strength the only solution is to sign or break the band.

Other way that labels screw bands and make them fall in their game is by doing a practice they called the payola which is pay for play. The labels pays huge amounts of money to the radio stations to play only their music to control what the people hear so independent music and labels are marginalized of the radio. This practice is illegal but they hide it by sayings that are promoters that pay that money. The label mentality is to make money at the artist expense a very capitalistic poor reality.

By this point if the and want to continue the relations with the label they has to do what the label told them to do usually is to change their music to mold it their hit making format. The original concept of the band is changed to the fans of the band that would be consider treason and for the band it should be a treason to their values too. Labels tend to make a steady stream of music or product for them. That why radio music is very homogenized and don’t give chance to independent music and independent labels to expose their music

If things happened the way it should be a record label can be useful to the band. So the best decision is to know the demon you’re dealing with, by talking with other bands experiences and then make a rational decision keeping in mind the opinions of the band members and the essence or concept of the band.