Themes Of The Glass Menagerie Essays - English-language Films, Films

Themes Of The Glass Menagerie ?The Glass Menagerie? is a play that contains intense human feelings; frustration, shyness, regretfulness, anger, and sadness. The play is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family. In this cramped, dinghy place lives three characters; Amanda, Laura, and Tom, who are desperate to make their dream come true. Amanda is a shrew, she wants to live through her daughter, Laura. Her dream is for her daughter to marry to a well-educated man and support her throughout the rest of her life. Amanda always make complaining remarks about her husband who had left her with Tom and Laura. Amanda nags Tom for spending too much time watching movies instead of working and finding a suitable for Laura. She likes to brag about how many Gentleman callers came to her house to pursue her. Tom is the narrator of the play. His dream is to be a poet and have no responsibilities to his family. He works at a warehouse, which he doesn't appreciate because it avoids him to complete his dream. He detests when his mother tell him what to do and how to do it, sometimes he has to act without pity. Laura is shy and has a low self-esteem. She is compared to her glass collection, fragile in every sense. As an effect of a childhood illness, she was left crippled, which made her think that she was less than everybody else. She avoids socializing because she is afraid of breaking up, however this changes when she sees her old crush, Jim O'cconor. Her dream is to feel good about herself and to get out of her depression. Each character desires to escape from this lifestyle, poverty is what has them trap. The fire escape provides a different purpose for each of the characters. From the opening of the play, Tom's addresses the audience from the fire escape. The fire escape allows Tom to get out of the apartment and away from his nagging mother. Amanda sees it as an entrance for the Gentleman callers to enter their lives. Laura hides inside the apartment not in the fire escape. The fire escape separates authenticity from the undiscovered. Tom escapes in more than one way, first is the fire escape which leads him away from his home, then the movies. The movies temporarily takes him to another world, where mothers and runaways fathers doesn't exist. He also gets away by drinking. He wants to escape his responsibilities of taking care of his mother and sister. He wishes to have a life of his own. Laura finds an escape through her glass collection. She also finds relieves in playing the same old record day after day. Across their apartment is the Paradise Dance Hall. Perhaps the music floating up to the apartment from the dance hall is supposed to be her escape which she just can't take. As time goes it's getting harder and harder for Tom to avoid the real world, and the time for him to leave comes. When he leaves , he feels guilty for abandoning Laura . However, he discovers that he hasn't escaped, but led himself onto a path of even more powerful desperation. The theme escape is used throughout the play to demonstrate the hopelessness of each character's dreams. For the characters, an escape is possible, however, in the end no one finds a clear break. Bibliography Williams, Tennesse. The Glass Menagerie.

Soviets Change the Calendar

Soviets Change the Calendar When the Soviets took over Russia during the October Revolution of 1917, their goal was to drastically change society. One way they attempted to do this was by changing the calendar. In 1929, they created the Soviet Eternal Calendar, which changed the structure of the week, month, and the year. Learn more about the history of the calendar and how the Soviets changed it. History of the Calendar For thousands of years, people have been working to create an accurate calendar. One of the first types of calendars was based on lunar months. However, while lunar months were easy to calculate because the moons phases were clearly visible to all, they have no correlation with the solar year. This posed a problem for both hunters and gatherers - and even more so for farmers - who needed an accurate way to predict seasons. Ancient Egyptians, although not necessarily known for their skills in mathematics, were the first to calculate a solar year. Perhaps they were the first because of their dependence on the natural rhythm of the Nile, whose rising and flooding was closely tied to seasons. As early as 4241 BCE, the Egyptians had created a calendar made up of 12 months of 30 days, plus five extra days at the end of the year. This 365-day calendar was amazingly accurate for a people who still did not know the Earth revolved around the sun. Of course, since the actual solar year is 365.2424 days long, this ancient Egyptian calendar was not perfect. Over time, seasons would gradually shift through all twelve months, making it through the entire year in 1,460 years. Caesar Makes Reforms In 46 BCE, Julius Caesar, aided by Alexandrian astronomer Sosigenes, revamped the calendar. In what is now known as the Julian calendar, Caesar created a yearly calendar of 365 days, divided into 12 months. Realizing that a solar year was closer to 365 1/4 days rather than just 365, Caesar added one extra day to the calendar every four years. Although the Julian calendar was much more accurate than the Egyptian calendar, it was longer than the actual solar year by 11 minutes and 14 seconds. That may not seem like much, but over several centuries, the miscalculation became noticeable. Catholic Change to the Calendar In 1582 CE, Pope Gregory XIII ordered a small reform to the Julian calendar. He established that every centennial year (such as 1800, 1900, etc.) would not be a leap year (like it otherwise would have been in the Julian calendar), except if the centennial year could be divided by 400. (This is why the year 2000 was a leap year.) Included in the new calendar was a one-time readjustment of the date. Pope Gregory XIII ordered that in 1582, October 4 would be followed by October 15 to fix the missing time created by the Julian calendar. However, since this new calendar reform was created by a Catholic pope, not every country jumped to make the change. While England and the American colonies finally switched over to what became known as the Gregorian calendar in 1752, Japan didnt accept it until 1873, Egypt until 1875, and China in 1912. Lenins Changes Although there had been discussion and petitions in Russia to switch to the new calendar, the tsar never approved its adoption.  After the Soviets successfully took over Russia in 1917, V.I. Lenin agreed that the Soviet Union should join the rest of the world in using the Gregorian calendar. In addition, to fix the date, the Soviets ordered that February 1, 1918 would actually become February 14, 1918. (This change of date still causes some confusion; for example, the Soviet takeover of Russia, known as the October Revolution, took place in November in the new calendar.) The Soviet Eternal Calendar This was not the last time the Soviets were to change their calendar. Analyzing every aspect of society, the Soviets looked closely at the calendar. Although each day is based on daylight and nighttime, each month could be correlated to the lunar cycle, and each year is based on the time the Earth takes to circumnavigate the sun, the idea of a week was a purely arbitrary amount of time. The seven-day week has a long history, which the Soviets identified with religion since the Bible states that God worked for six days and then took the seventh day to rest. In 1929, the Soviets created a new calendar, known as the Soviet Eternal Calendar. Although keeping the 365-day year, the Soviets created a five-day week, with every six weeks equaling a month. To account for the missing five days (or six in a leap year), there were five (or six) holidays placed throughout the year.   A Five-Day Week The five-day week consisted of four days of work and one day off. However, the day off was not the same for everyone. Intending to keep factories running continuously, workers would take staggered days off. Each individual was assigned a color (yellow, pink, red, purple, or green), which corresponded with which of the five days of the week they would take off. Unfortunately, this did not increase productivity. In part because it ruined family life since many family members would have different days off from work. Also, the machines could not handle constant use and would often break down. It Didnt Work In December 1931, the Soviets switched to a six-day week in which everyone received the same day off. Although this helped rid the country of the religious Sunday concept and allowed families to spend time together on their day off, it did not increase efficiency. In 1940, the Soviets restored the seven-day week.

Faisal Mosque in Pakistan Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Faisal Mosque in Pakistan - Research Paper Example The mosque was built as an attribution to the late King Faisal of Saudi Arabia. Its symbolism was based on the fact that it was to portray the hopes and aspiration of Pakistani people (Archnet Digital Library, â€Å"Faisal Mosque†). According to Serageldin, the Muslim culture values the symbolic portray of the architectural building. Some of the most important symbolic structures in Muslim architecture include the minaret, dome, gateway and mihrab. These parts communicate a message to everybody, Muslims or non-Muslims. Vedat Dalokay implemented this symbolic meaning into the Faisal Mosque and, that is why it has become a landmark. According to Mandour, Islamic culture includes art, design, education, science, religion and sport, which has a specific meaning. The design architecture by Vedat Dalokay symbolized and implemented art, beliefs, values and customs in the Pakistani people. The architecture of the mosque was based on a new design that was not related to the usual and t raditional mosques that had been previously built. As a tribute to King Faisal, it was to have a unique architecture and that was why Vedat Dalokay was chosen to make it a state of the art construction. Some of its characteristics were that it was looking like a desert tent where its height was approximately 40 m, and it had girders that supported its concrete walls. The surface was pure white, and its interior design was decorated with mosaic designs and a Turkish chandelier that was strategically placed by its architect, Vedat Dalokay. Its space was big to accommodate a total of 10,000 worshippers in the main prayer hall, and it had four minarets, each measuring approximately 90 m, and they were slender and sharply pointed. Lastly, it was a people’s mosque, meaning it was a contribution to the people of Pakistan by King Faisal, and thus it also accommodated the mausoleum of General Zia-ul-Haq, who was the President of Pakistan from 1978 to 1988 (Archnet Digital Library, â⠂¬Å"Faisal Mosque†). Thesis Architecture is one of the most prestigious arts that can be portrayed in form of a structure. The King Faisal Mosque is one of the best-designed mosques in Pakistan and in the world. This research paper will seek to analyze the architecture of the Faisal Mosque, its symbolism, the color of the mosque and its design and some of the quotes from the founding architect Vedat Dalokay. The paper will also seek to discuss the possible symbolism of the mosque and its historical and cultural concept. Analysis of the design Dalokay was a great architect whose designs were based on the 20th century designs. The mosque's architecture is modern and unique. The mosque was also constructed with the twist of Turkish design as well as Islamic designs. The modern mosque lacked the traditional dome shapes design, as compared to other mosques that are located in the world. The traditional shapes for the olden mosques were related to the historical religious designs th at were dated back then to the olden days of the Islamic culture. The mosque’s design also includes a triangular prayer hall that can hold up to 10,000 people, and in addition to that, it has four minarets that depict the classical shapes of modern architecture. The minarets are also said to have been designed with regard to the Turkish tradition because they are sharp-pointed. It has an eight-sided shape, which was inspired by the famous desert Beduoin's tent and the cubic Kaaba in Mecca and whose architect was Vedat Dalokay, according to Rengel. Speaking to students, the architect, Vedat Dalokay later explained his acute and unique architectural design to design school students commenting that: I tried to capture the spirit, proportion and geometry of Ka'aba in a purely abstract manner. Imagine