Grapes of Wrath Book Review Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Grapes of Wrath Book Review - Essay Example The condition was so ghastly and it had ruined the crops and instigated massive foreclosure on the land. The time was harder particularly in Oklahoma. It was a faulty farming method and drought which resulted into wind erosion of the topsoil. Consequently the Great Plains in the region became â€Å"The Dust Bowl.† â€Å"The Dust Bowl was caused by agricultural malpractices as well as years of sustained drought and incessant strong winds.† (Bernd Steiner 2007) It was the worst condition especially for the tenant farmers. They had been pushed off their land, as they were not able to pay the rent to the banks. Many agricultural workers left for California in search of a rich and fertile land. The journey towards California is very long and gruelling. Grandpa of the family does not want to live his original place and he is constantly complaining bitterly. He dies during their journey. Sairy is sick and showed inability to move forward to the journey. Their dreams of good fo rtune get shattered as soon as they reached to California. The number of jobs was lesser than the number of farmers, i.e. 800 jobs against 20,000 people. The entire family experienced another adversity of life when they reached to California. ... Tom Joad is the protagonist of this novel. He is a man of thirty and has just come out of prison. He had been convicted for murdering a man during a fight four years back. He is good natured and a source of vitality for his family, apart from his 4 years’ stay in prison. He earns honour from his family as well as from the other workers whom he assembled together to form workers’ organization. Other characters include Tom’s parents Ma Joad and Pa Joad. Ma Joad is like a citadel of the family. Pa Joad though sensible and good natured, sometimes feels ashamed of his weaker position. Jim Casy is depicted as a former preacher and a staunch friend of Tom. Rose of Sharon is the eldest daughter of Ma and Pa Joads and she is depicted earlier as a romantic lady but then she has to face many troubles in her life. She faces harsh realities after the death of her new born baby, and the abandonment from her husband, she become quite matured and sensible. She represents the har sh life of the migrants. The character of Joad’s grandfather is sketched in a black shade. He is violent tempered and mean. This meanness is now limited to his tongue, probably due to his old age. He gets pleasure in tormenting others by his harsh talk. Unlike him his wife Grandma Joad is pious. Ivy and Sairy Wilson is a good couple who met the Joads during their journey to California. They helped them by lending their tents to the Joad family so that Grandpa could have got comfortable place to die. There was a good relationship and mutual cooperation between the two families. Other members of Joad family included Tom’s elder brother Noah, uncle John, and second younger daughter Ruthie and Winfield Joad. Muley Graves is another character who is the

Zapatistas :: Essays Papers

Zapatistas For the past several years, there has been an on going movement to liberate the large population of farmers in Mexico. These farmers are fighting to win back their pro-claimed rights to their farm land. The farmers operate within an organization known as the Zapatistas. In present time the Zapatistas, with the help of the media especially the filmmaker Nettie Wild, have gained global attention towards their struggle for human rights. Many efforts have been made by outside authorities like the US, to assist the human rights movement in Mexico. The movement so far has resulted in many political killings of the Zapatistas members. Mexico’s government has been trying to rid themselves of the â€Å"chaos† the Zapatistas have stirred up within the country. The Mexican government has forced over 17,000 people into refuge because they have not allowed them back onto their farm land. Efforts continue on behalf of the Zapatistas and many outside authorities to bring peace to this area of Chiapas. I believe that the Zapatistas have made their fight a global issue. The art of Erica Chappuis displays a culture of people who are in hiding and trying to survive with the little resources they have. The art displays Zapatistas with coffee plants in which they are selling, wearing their trademark bandana covering their faces. This picture makes a strong argument for what they are fighting for. If Mexico allowed them back onto their land they would still be cultivating coffee, but would not have to cover their faces. The covering of the Zapatistas faces exploits the human rights struggle that they are currently fighting. The Zapatistas movement is a â€Å"post modern revolution†. In the world today the emphasis on human rights is strong, thus this is why the Zapatistas have gained so much attention. I believe that the Zapatistas are slowly succeeding in their revolution because of the mass attention they are receiving. As more and more people become aware of the horrible human rights struggle these people are undergoing, I believe their mission will become more and more successful. The more people who know about the struggle will then in turn put more pressure on the Mexican government to liberate these people. I believe that the Zapatista movement is worthy of support. No people in the world should be forced off their land and into hiding.

Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King)

Luis Alban Professor J. Kenny CIN 100 SEC#9044 {text:date} Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (Stephen King) After I read the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King and see the movie The Shawshank Redemption, based on the book, I have to denote some differences and similarities. In general the movie is very loyal to the book but I believe that the most important aspects are as follow. For example, they are similar in the time line. In the movie we can observe with clarity the 40’s environment, old fashion car, the shoes of Andy and his custom is related at that time. Even though in the movie no date appears in the beginning we can infer the time, later Red speaks the date in what Andy arrives to the prison. In the novella the date is stated in the beginning â€Å"When Andy came to Shawshank in 1948, he was thirty years old†¦. _† (King 5). _ Another similarity is the dialogue in the trial. Both are very similar, for example, in the book we can read â€Å"But this revenge had been of a much colder type. Consider! the DA said at the jury. Four and four! Not six shots, but eight! He had fired the gun empty†¦and then stopped to reload so he could shoot each of them again! Four for him and four for her†¦_† (King 7). _In the movie the lawyer uses the same words of the novella when describes that Andy reload the revolver for killing his wife and his lover. Of course the dialogue is fixed from the novella to the movie highlighting the most important aspects in the trial. Another match is when Andy meets Red in the prison yard. Both, the movie and the novella, displays the dialogue between Andy and Red, it uses almost the same words _â€Å"I _understand that you’re a man who knows how to get things. † â€Å"I agree with that I was able to locate certain items from time to time. (King 16). Of course we can appreciate the artistic way to put in the movie the essence of the novella. Even though in the movie the dialogue is simpler in the book is full in details and expressions. Another passage with similarities is when Andy and his co-workers are doing the job over the roof and listen Byron Hadley speaks with his partners about 35,00 0 dollars that he received as inherit of his dead brother. Andy is approaching him and saying _â€Å"Do you trust your wife? †Ã¢â‚¬ ¦Ã¢â‚¬ Boy†, Hadley said,† I’ll give you just one chance to pick up that pad. And then you’re goin off this roof on your head. (King 33). It is almost the same dialogue that the characters use in the film. It is very remarkable the part when Red reminds the event explaining how they felt in that time. â€Å"That’s how, on the second –to-last day of the job, the convict crew that tarred the plate-factory roof in 1950 ended up sitting in a row at ten o’clock on a spring morning, drinking Black Label beer supplied by the hardest screw that ever walked a turn at Shawshank state prison. †(King 37)_. In the movie he finishes the narration felling like a free man tarring a roof of one of their own houses, arguing why Andy did that. For him he did it just to feel normal again. It is pretty similar when you read the book. Of course the novella has much of detail that it can’t fit in the length of a movie. Like I said in the beginning, the film is very loyal to the novella but I notice some differences or parts that you don’t see in the movie and you don’t read in the book. For example one thing can be the physical traits of the protagonists. Andy Dufresne is described in the novella as follow â€Å"_He was short, neat little man with sandy hair and small, clever hands. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. (King 5)_ In the movie Andy is characterized by Tim Robbins. We know that actor. He is tall, handsome, and don’t use any kind of spectacles in his performance, at least not in the beginning. Another is Red who is performed by Morgan Freeman. That actor is black but in the novella _Red is a white Irish man with red hair. â€Å"A kid had come in back in 1938, a kid with a big mop of carrot y red hair†¦Ã¢â‚¬ __(King 45)_ Another difference is Brooke Hatlen, the librarian, the novella tells us about his parole in 1952. He never threatens to cut the throat of another prisoner in order to avoid being parole like we observe in the movie. The novella states that Brooksie died in an indigent’s home in 1953 â€Å"_I heard he died in a home for indigent old folks up Freeport way in 1953†¦ (King 39. ). _ In the movie Brooks suicide later that he got freedom. He doesn’t know how live outside the prison and take his life away. It is only happen in the movie not in the novella. At the time in when Andy become a new librarian the warden of the prison is a man called Stammas_ â€Å"He began to write to the State Senate in Augusta in 1954. Stammas was warden by then, and he used to pretend Andy was some sort of mascot. †(Kings 40). _ In the film Norton is the warden throughout the movie. This character in the novella is multiple, Norton was the last one in the novella but in the movie he is the only one. In the novella Samuel Norton_ _resigned three months after Andy’s escape but in the film he is killing himself with a gun. Another difference is Tommy Williams, a professional thief, he arrives at Shawshank in 1962 not in 1965 like the movie show us. He has wife and a three years old baby boy not a baby girl like in the movie the narrator does. In the film when Tommy_ _discovers that he knows who killed Andy’s wife and his lover, Sam Norton killed Tommy to avoid set Andy free. Consequently he could speak about Norton’s monkey business when he is releasing from the jail. In the novella Norton transferred Tommy to a minimum-security prison: At that, Andy fell silent. He was an intelligent man, but it would have taken an extraordinary stupid man not to smell deal all over that. Cashman was a minimum-security prison far up north in Aroostok County†¦Norton had almost surely dangled all of that under Tommy’s nose with only one string attached: not one more word about Elwood Blatch, not now, not ever†¦(King 61-62). Another variation is something that I noticed immediately when I read the passage of the book in page 44. The novella speaks about Normaden, an Indian prisoner who was the unique cellmate Andy had. In the movie this character never appears, only in the novella. â€Å"_But in all that time Andy never had a cellmate, except for a big, silent Indian named Normaden (like Indians in The Shawshank, he was called chief), and Normaden didn’t last long. (King 44)_. I think that character has not a great impact within the movie to put in on the screen. I have noticed more differences between the book and the movie but I have to remark the last one. The ending of the movie is pretty different from the novella. In the film the end is an encounter between Andy a Red in a beach in Mexico, but in the novel the ending is Red traveling to Zihuatenejo, the place that Andy mentioned Red when he was in prison: I hope Andy is down there. I hope I can make it across the border. I hope to see my friend and shake his hand. I hope the Pacific is as blue as it has been in my dreams. I hope. (King 101) I have to conclude that the movie is artistically adapted to communicate the essence of the novella. But I prefer to read the novella. It is more plenty of details and some parts of it are not included in the movie. However I like the movie too. It is pretty similar but I understand that is a quite impossible to put on the screen all of details we read in the book. Works Cited King, Stephen. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. U. S. A. : Viking Press, 1982.

The Healthcare Plan Of Clinton - 1569 Words

THE HEALTHCARE PLAN OF CLINTON Clinton’s Healthcare Plan: the Reasons Why It Failed In the United States the issue of government funded healthcare programs has always been one of importance drawing attentions of many and involving myriads of debate sessions. Still now people take quite interest in dissecting and finally commenting on why Obamacare is a success and why Clintoncare/Hillarycare was not. But whatever may be the reason behind such indulgence, it must be analyzed why such a welfare effort like President Clinton’s healthcare plan ultimately failed even though having some great features which, if implemented properly, would have changed the course of healthcare policies in the United States for a considerable period of†¦show more content†¦Congress, as one of the key players, was seriously considering plans to provide universal health coverage on one hand, and physicians, big businesses, and Republican lawmakers, on the other hand, as various interest groups opposing the Congress, were more interested in blocking the proposals of the Congres s (Bok, 1998). The situation was a dilemmatic one and some reformation was needed. Clinton felt the nerve of the majority of the populace who were in favor of healthcare reform and hence, he made healthcare a primary weapon in his election campaigns. With his win the issue of healthcare reform came to forefront. It must be noted that gradually American businesses were singing in the tune of Clinton due to the fear of losing further businesses due to their disadvantageous position fueled by the rising health costs in the United States and â€Å"Growing segments of the medical community expresses a desire to consider reforms; even hospitals seemed interested in some scheme that would spare them the heavy burden of giving free medical care to the uninsured† (Bok, 1998). Moreover, Clinton was obliged to introduce a healthcare reform policy also due to the fact that â€Å"large majorities of the public rated health care reform among the most urgent problems facing the nation and voiced support for a plan that would provide medical insurance for all Americansâ₠¬  (Bok, 1998). After getting elected as the