City of God Response Paper

City of God

City of God is a story of young boys growing up in a lower class slum of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The characters don’t act in believable ways if you’re looking at it in a sense of how boys behave in our American world. You would never see a ten year old kid walking through your neighborhood with a gun. But when you look at the story and see that these young kids were trying to fit in and either becoming a worker or hood was the choice. I know that I’m only used to seeing what goes on in American culture and don’t know how people handle things in South America. This film is swarmed with violence and under the circumstances the way the characters act as they grow up is also believable. The drug lord world in the city is what is influencing the narrative world. Li’l Dice who in the beginning of the story starts out as one of the boys trying to fit in with older hoods becomes one of the most known dealers in the city known as Li’l Ze. The scene when Rocket goes over the history of the apartment really shows how people with anger in their hearts can take over and kill anyone who gets in their way. It shows how people went in and out of the apartment and how dealers started taking over and kicking people out of their business. That really showed us that it didn’t matter who you were or how much power you had but if you had a gun and wanted to get rich and respected, you could. Violence and the need for respect is what drove the dramatic energy in City of God. I would think that when Li’l Ze doesn’t kill Knockout Ned was one of the greatest shifts in the mood of the story. The scene shows Knockout Ned lying on the ground asking why Li’l Ze didn’t kill him and then it shows Li’l Ze walking away questioning why he didn’t kill him. It is one of the greatest shifts because everything goes downhill after that. Knockout Ned wants revenge and becomes a hood and the “runts” begin to choose which dealer they want to side with. Another shift in the film is when Benny gets killed because now that Li’l Ze doesn’t have Benny’s calming attitude and firm guidance he wants to take over the entire drug business in the city. I think that the police not being able to do anything about all the drug dealers and the fact that anyone could own a gun throughout the whole story was a political statement. It showed how authority wasn’t important to hoods in the City of God. Obviously there were stereotypes for these young boys; either they were workers or hoods. And there were stereotypes in the city like “Groovies” who were young hippies who smoked pot and were really chill about everything; Benny was a “groovie”. This movie really marginalizes the lower class living in the slum. They never showed the nice parts and high class living of Rio de Janeiro, only the City of God. My gap question is why did Li’l Ze feel like he had to change his name. I don’t know if it was explained during the movie but if it was I missed it.

The Story of an Hour Response Paper

The Story of an Hour

There is a lot literary about this short story. This text is full of similes, metaphors and personification. The use of alliteration helps to find out what is symbolic about this story. In the beginning, Mrs. Mallard finds out from her sister and a friend of her husband’s that her husband has been killed in a train accident. She automatically is crushed and begins to weep over the death of her husband. Anyone who finds out that a loved one has died is going to be sad. It is believable that Mrs. Mallard is sad. I think that when she gets over it and feels a sense of freedom was kind of believable. It all happened really fast and that is why I felt like it wasn’t necessarily truly believable. In the first sentence of this short story it tells us that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble. This helps the readers foreshadow her death at the end. I don’t know if that would resolve the text because it left me questioning why or how she actually died. Mrs. Mallard is overcome with sadness when she is told that Brently has died and when she starts thinking about what her life will become a sense of freedom is what is affecting her world. She doesn’t have to answer to anyone or live for anyone. From that moment on she was going to live for herself and be her own person—not what someone else wants her to be. Her thoughts about being free are driving the dramatic energy in this story. One wouldn’t think that someone could get over the death of a loved one so fast. I think there are two shifts in this story. One is when she first discovers Brently is dead because she becomes overwhelmed with sadness. And the second is when she recovers and decides to live for herself. I thought that it was very ironic that in the beginning she was told her husband was dead and when she is okay with it he turns out to be alive and then Mrs. Mallard ends of dying. She thinks that now that she is on her own she will have the chance to do things that she wants to do and not what she is told to do. I guess the stereotype of a typical woman is portrayed in this story—Mrs. Mallard is married and obviously she thinks that the man of the house is who runs it. I wouldn’t give this story and thumbs up or down. It was in the middle because I feel like it was too short of a story to determine whether it was good or bad. My gap question would be do you think that Mrs. Mallard would have died at the end anyway, even if Mr. Mallard turned out to be dead? She was ready to look at the world in a new light and was going to be optimistic but she still had a bad heart. It just says that she died of heart disease.

Pan's Labyrinth Response Paper

Pan’s Labyrinth

Pan’s Labyrinth is a story about girl dealing with her beliefs in fairy tales and what she should believe about the real world. In this film she struggles with her mother being sick, a horrible step-father, and a magical faun giving her tasks to see if she is a princess of another fantasy world. Before watching the movie we saw a short documentary from the director of the film, Guillermo del Toro, and he explained the common cases of “threes” that he interacted into the movie. There were three fairies that visited Ofelia, she had a choice between three doors to unlock, and she had three tasks to complete before the moon was full. I think that the reoccurrence of threes in literary in the text. Ofelia’s character in the movie certainly acts in a believable manor. She is young girl who is curious about her surroundings. She gets thrown into a new home and a new father comes into her life that could care less about her. There were times that I was kind of shocked about how calm she was and trusting she was around the creatures. I would have been freaked out. This movie takes place just after the Spanish Civil War in the 1940s and throughout the film the Spanish Maquis guerillas are being rooted out by Ofelia’s step-father, the Captain Vidal. Ofelia and her mother just moved out to the post in the mountains of Northwestern Spain. I think some of the forces affecting the narrative world in this story are a change in atmosphere for the both of them and Ofelia’s adventurous and rebellious side. I think that when Ofelia is on her second task and she eats some grapes off of the table, when she is strictly told not to, really drives the dramatic energy. Because she breaks the rules the faun tells her that she will never be able to return to the other realm. After this happened it left you wondering how the story was going to end. I think that Pan’s Labyrinth made a lot of political statements because it was set in post-Civil War Spain and you saw how the doctor and Mercedes were helping the Maquis guerillas while working for the Captain. That just shows you how loyal people really were the person firmly in power. You can tie this story together with a lot of other fairy tales. Guillermo del Toro explained how he used influences from Alice in Wonderland. So I think that other fairy tales like Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz can be associated with this because the storyline involves a girl trying to find her way home while overcoming obstacles that are thrown her way whether they are real or fantasy. I would definitely give this text a thumbs up! I feel that the story was very well thought out and I really enjoyed watching the short documentary beforehand to give us a more in depth perspective of how Guillermo del Toro came up with the ideas behind Pan’s Labyrinth.

Persepolis Response Paper

Persepolis

In this film, set in the 1970s in Iran, the people are rebelling against the Shah (Iranian government). I feel like the characters are behaving in believable ways because they feel that the government isn’t doing what it is supposed to be. The main character, Marjane Satrapi, rebels by wearing “punk rock” clothes and shoes and listening to rock music that she buys off the streets from men in black coats. The people of Tehran would have parties and then have to pour out all the alcohol and hide guests of the opposite sex if officers invaded their homes to see if they were up to no good. They just wanted to be free of the tyrannical government. The Shah is the force that if affecting Marjane and her family’s world in the text. In one scene in this film a young boy was shot and killed during a gathering which I am assuming was a protest. Marjane’s parents witnessed this young boy being killed and it really affected her mother. Her parents always talked about how it used to be and how they used to be able to hold hands in public but now women had to wear scarves and hid themselves. I think when Uncle Anoush comes into the picture and tells Marjane all about his life story is one of the greatest shifts. Shortly after he comes into her life he is taken away to prison and is killed. Marjane’s world is turned around because he has such an impact on her life in a short amount of time. I think this film made a lot of political statements throughout her story. One of them being the people could overthrow their government because they weren’t happy with it. Or how about that when she comes back to Tehran, after being away for eight years, the situation “seems worse” to her father because the people don’t even remember why they had a war in the first place. I didn’t know this before I saw this film that it was also a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. She was very brave to write about how her life got turned upside down. I wish that the story would have let us know more about what happened to Marjane after she left for the second time, and if she found love again. What kinds of things did she do after she gets to France? And what about her parents, how are things with them? I kind of felt like the movie ended really fast and could have closed up some ends for us. I still really enjoyed Persepolis. I didn’t think that I would be able to pay attention because it was in French and I had to read the subtitles but it made the movie so much better in my opinion. And I also feel that the title is fitting because Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Persian Empire. I was really interested and glad to see that at the end of the film when she is asked where she is from that she replies “Iran” because she was kind of ashamed of her heritage throughout her time in Vienna.