How did music reflect the fast paced industrialized world of the 20th Century? How do you think the recording industry changed music?

marbar57

How
did music reflect the fast paced industrialized world of the 20th Century?  

How do you
think the recording industry changed music?

 
Recording studios want to sell what the public will buy.  They are looking for profits and
aren't going to push something that's going to make them lose money.  Sometimes a song is good,
but it doesn't even get off the ground because no studio will record it!  So, whether they
realize it or not, the recording industry is controlling the type of music that everyone listens
to these days! 

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Evil Characters in Orwell's "1984" Which character(s) in 1984 is most evil? Why are his/her evil acts so seductive? What draws us into this...

Good
question!

I think that the most evil character in the novel is actually the
Inner Party- the people who are controlling the Outer Party and the Proles, to some extent,
whereandand everyone else reside. The Inner Party are the people who have constructed this
society, its norms, its rules, its telescreens. The Inner Party is seductive in that it can
reduce the ration of chocolate one day and the very next day make the same reduction appear to
be an increase. The Inner Party can channel sexual energy into pure unadulterated hatred with
pictures on a screen and they can change this violent hatred into pure love and worship of Big
Brother instantaneously. The Inner Party knows what people's thoughts are, they can make you
betray anyone, they always have absolute power and loyalty from every
member of the Outer Party no matter how serious the dissension might seem at any given time from
any number of members. The Inner Party can make a person believe that Oceania has always been at
war with Eurasia, even though a day ago they were at war with Eastasia. The Inner Party can
create people and wipe them from existence.

In "Young Goodman Brown," why do you think Brown goes into the forest on a journey which he knows is sinful?

"" is often said by critics to be, among other themes, a comment on the
strict religious culture of the early Puritans. In such a strict culture, the people/characters
are faced with an irreconcilable opposition between goodness and evil. As such, those adhering
to the radical religious codes and laws would react with outrage at anything remotely evil. This
was theof the Salem Witch Trials. And in the story, Brown himself reacts with similar outrage.
In fact, after witnessing (as a dream or in reality) that evil exists among his pious
townspeople, Brown decides that all is lost....

What are some literary devices in "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"?

's
"" is a delightful story because of the comic ability and clever  of its author,
Washington Irving. The names of the characters in this narrative are certainly humorous: 
Ichabod and Brom Bones, Old Baltus Van Tassel, Hans Van Ripper, etc. The huge daughter of Van
Tassel is humorously referred to as "the peerless daughter."

In
addition, Irving employs figurative language. For instance, in describing Brom Bones, Irving
writes,

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out
the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth
gallantries,[] and though his amorous toyings [metaphor for his
attempts] were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a
bear,[]...

Certain it is, his advances were signals for
rival candidates [metaphor] to retire, who felt no inclination
to cross a lion in his amours...[metaphor]

There are many more metaphors and similes in this comical history.  For example, when
Ichabod is frightened he is "appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which,
like a sheeted spectre, [simile] beset his very
path!"  When Ichabod enters Katrina's house "the conquest of his heart was
complete" [figurative language].

In discussing how "women's hearts
are wooed and won," Irving writes,

It is a great
triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain
possession of the latter, for the man must battle for his fortress [metaphor] at every door and
window.  He who wins a thousand common hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who
keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette, is indeed a hero.

Ichabod Crane would be such a hero as he borrows a horse from a
farmer and mounts it, "issued forth, like a knight-errant in quest of
adventures [simile].  It is here that Irving's satiric humor also takes hold as
Crane, an "unskillful rider," is compared to one of the knights-errant in King
Arthur's tales who rides to the "castle of the Heer Van Tassel."

In
addition to his humor, Washington Irving is renowned for his creative .  His descriptions of the
fields that Crane passes, taking note of the fruit, contain many sensory words:

vast stores of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the
trees;...great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts,
...fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive, ...

One paragraph replete with imagery is as follows:

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets.  In the
fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, chirping, and frolicking, from bush to
bush...capricious from the very profusion and variety around them.  There was the honest
cock-robin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud querulous note; and the
twittering blackbirds flying in sable coulds; and the golden-tipt tail, and its little monteiro
cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his gay light-blue coat and white
underclothes; screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on
good terms with every sonster of the grove.

What's ironic in Graham Greene's short story "The Destructors"?

It would seem
thatexpresses in his story, "" that the greatestof the World War II Blitz on London is
that the children of this era do not find destruction as an aberration. Rather, it seems to them
the norm.  This is why the boys who are lead, significantly, by an architect's son, imitate what
has occurred to buildings throughout their city; for Old Misery's house to be standing seems
somehow wrong to them. Their act of taking the house apart in such an ingenious way is, in
effect, an inverse form of architecture, a deconstruction.

Streaks of light came in through the closed shutters where they worked with the
seriousness of creators--and destruction after all is a form of creation. A kind of imagination
had seen this house as it had now become.

The underlying
climate of war is present in the descriptions:

• "They
  squatted in the ruins of the room...." Later, "the doors
  were all off,the furniture pillaged and ripped and
  smashed...."
• "...the slow warm drops...
  

What are Santiago's personal flaws in The Alchemist by Coelho; what holds the character back from reaching his goals?

In 's
, there seem to be very few things that hold the character back from
achieving his goals. In terms of personal "flaws," he trusts too easily and he
experiences self-doubt after he is robbed.

When Santiago decides to sell his
sheep, he is too quick to trust someone that he does not know. Part of the difficulty is that
the bartender tries to warn Santiago, but they do not speak the same language. Santiago also
does not spend much time in a community of people, traveling alone except for his sheep. This is
not a personal flaw as I see it, but inexperience. He
is disheartened and momentarily loses faith in himselfand
this might well be seen as a personal flaw that temporarily stops his
progress toward realizing his dream.

It might be considered a personal flaw
that he believes that true wealth is found in things of material value. He does not understand
that things of true value are often intrinsic in nature. However, one of Santiago's positive
traits is his willingness to open his mind to new ideas, and he soon learns that he has been
mistaken.

The other instance where Santiago is harshly tested, which stops
his quest to fulfill his Personal Legend is when he goes to the crystal merchant for a job. Two
important things happen here. First, the merchant tells Santiago that even if he worked for a
year, he would still have to borrow money to travel to Egypt. At this moment everything the boy
has learned and wished for almost ceases to exist.

There
was a moment of silence so profound that it seemed the city was asleep. No sound from the
bazaars, no arguments among the merchants, no men climbing to the towers to chant. No hope, no
adventure, no old kings or Personal Legends, no treasure, and no Pyramids. It was as if the
world had fallen silent because the boy's soul had. He sat there€¦wishing he had died, and that
everything would end forever at that moment.

In this we
see Santiago's complete loss of faith. The heroic young man with such
towering aspirations and optimism is crushed in a single moment when an enormous obstacle
appears in his path. This may well indicate a personal flaw: it certainly stops him from moving
forward. In factand this is the second thing that happensSantiago loses faith in his dream, his
Personal Legend. In this instant he resolves to work for the crystal merchant to earn enough
money to buy sheep and return to his old life.

This is exactly
what Melchizedek, the King of Salem, had referred to when he had shared with Santiago the
experience of the miner who had almost given up his Personal Legend after
working so hardand at this point Melchizedek had stepped in to help. However, this
"flaw" in Santiago is understandable. His ability to overcome it takes eleven months.
It seems, as is common in this story, that the universe "conspires" to help the boy
achieve his goal. This time is well-spent in that he has the chance to think about his life, his
goals, his strengths, and his dreams. He is also able to discover the universal language that
leads him to watch for omens, as he tells the crystal merchant. Standing up to the merchant's
suggestion that he return to his sheep, we see how much the boy has grown.

Whatever impediments that stand in Santiago's way because of his "flaws," he
ultimately puts asidehe regains his faith in the world and himself, and is
able to once again move toward his goal. Eventually the boy finds more wealth than he could have
ever imagined.

 

What are some major themes of the story "The Luck of Roaring Camp"?

Isolation is another important theme in the story. Roaring Luck itself is some way
removed from civilization, both culturally and geographically. This wild, remote outpost
provides a suitable home for the colorful cast of characters who are among society's
outcasts.

Yet the characters' isolation from so-called respectable society
paradoxically brings them closer together. For the denizens of the old mining camp, it's very
much a case of Roaring Camp against the world. This attitude of close-knit solidarity can be
seen in the case of Cherokee Sal, who herself is isolated on account of being the only woman
about the place. The men of the camp protect her, thus ensuring the safe delivery of her baby.
(Though sadly Sal herself dies in childbirth.) Before she passed away, Cherokee Sal's status as
Roaring Camp's lone female, combined with the power of the ruling patriarchy, meant that she
remained an isolated figure, even in the midst of a largely supportive...