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.