Jay Mcinerneys Bright Lights, Big City: You Are The Coma Baby :: essays research papers

Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City: You are the Coma Baby The novel Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney relates the tale of a young man working for a prominent newspaper in Manhattan by day, while visiting many bars and nightclubs during the night. He manages to accomplish this through the help of his use of cocaine, to which he is powerfully addicted. Throughout the novel McInerney employs the use of the Coma Baby, a current story in the New York Post, a local tabloid, as a symbolic representation of the main character. The Coma Baby has been residing in its mother's womb after the mother suffered a car accident and entered a coma. The debate is to whether the Coma Baby will see the "light of the delivery room". In this passage the main character is experiencing a dream where he interacts with the Coma Baby in his workplace. This passage, through the words and phrases employed by McInerney as both dialogue and narration, is strong support for the concept that like the Coma Baby, the main character wants to avoid facing the harsh realities of life and continue living isolated in his world of narcotic-induced pleasure. The author uses the interaction of the main character and the Coma Baby as proof that the main character will not realize the fallacies of his ways until he has hit rock-bottom. The Coma Baby is shown to be the symbolic representation of the main character through his actions and philosophy toward life, a philosophy wholly irresponsible and unmotivated. As the main character approaches he asks the Baby if he's going to come out. The Baby responds with "No way Josà ©. I like it in here. Everything I need is pumped in."(line 11) This remark illustrates the main character's attitude toward life. With the condition that the Baby gets what he needs, he has no motivation to improve his situation. This parallels with the main character, who , provided he has his cocaine, does little to improve his situation. For example, he continually shows up late to work, and then after completely botching a project is fired from his job. The drugs have completely stolen his motivation towards life. After this, when the main character tries to reason with the Coma Baby about improving his situation, the Coma Baby plays a deaf-and -dumb routine(line14), highly symbolic of the main character's actions toward those that have been trying to help him. For example, the main character continues to avoid Clara Tillinghast, his boss, in her attempts to bring him to work on time.

Definition of Drama Essay

Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. [1] The term comes from a Greek word â€Å"dran† meaning â€Å"action† which is derived from â€Å"to do† or â€Å"to act†. Drama is an art form that explores human conflict and tension. It generally takes the form of a story presented to an audience through dialogue and action. The story is conveyed using the elements of the theatre: acting, costumes, props, scenery, lighting, music, and sound. Drama has an emotional and intellectual impact on both the participants and audience members. It holds up a mirror for us to examine ourselves, deepening our understanding of human motivation and behavior. It broadens our perspective through stories that portray life from different points of view, cultures, and time periods. Types of Drama There are many forms of Drama. Here is a non-exhaustive list with a simple explanation of each: Improvisation / Let’s Pretend A scene is set, either by the teacher or the children, and then with little or no time to prepare a script the students perform before the class. Role Plays Students are given a particular role in a scripted play. After rehearsal the play is performed for the class, school or parents. Mime Children use only facial expressions and body language to pass on a message tcript to the rest of the class. Masked Drama The main props are masks. Children then feel less inhibited to perform and overact while participating in this form of drama. Children are given specific parts to play with a formal script. Using only their voices they must create the full picture for the rest of the class. Interpreting content and expressing it using only the voice. Puppet Plays Children use puppets to say and do things that they may feel too inhibited to say or do themselves. Performance Poetry While reciting a poem the children are encourage to act out the story from the poem. Radio Drama ————————————————- Similar to script reading with the addition of other sound affects, The painting of the mental picture is important * Plot: This is what happens in the play. Plot refers to the action; the basic storyline of the play. * Theme: While plot refers to the action of the play, theme refers to the meaning of the play. Theme is the main idea or lesson to be learned from the play. In some cases, the theme of a play is obvious; other times it is quite subtle. * Characters: Characters are the people (sometimes animals or ideas) portrayed by the actors in the play. It is the characters who move the action, or plot, of the play forward. * Dialogue: This refers to the words written by the playwright and spoken by the characters in the play. The dialogue helps move the action of the play along. * Music/Rhythm: While music is often featured in drama, in this case Aristotle was referring to the rhythm of the actors’ voices as they speak. * Spectacle: This refers to the visual elements of a play: sets, costumes, special effects, etc. Spectacle is everything that the audience sees as they watch the play. In modern theater, this list has changed slightly, although you will notice that many of the elements remain the same. The list of essential elements in modern theater are: * Character * Plot * Theme * Dialogue * Convention * Genre * Audience The first four, character, plot, theme and dialogue remain the same, but the following additions are now also considered essential elements of drama. * Convention: These are the techniques and methods used by the playwright and director to create the desired stylistic effect. * Genre: Genre refers to the type of play. Some examples of different genres include, comedy, tragedy, mystery and historical play. * Audience: This is the group of people who watch the play. Many playwrights and actors consider the audience to be the most important element of drama, as all of the effort put in to writing and producing a play is for the enjoyment of the audience http://newtestamentyouths. org/index. php? option=com_content&view=article&id=84:drama-classification-and-descriptions&catid=39:congress-talent-showcase&Itemid=58

The Nadir of Race Relations by John Boles Article Analysis

How Bad It Gets The main idea of John Boles article that is entitled The Nadir of Race Relations is to depict the social, economic, and, to a lesser extent, the political conditions for African Americans in the Southern part of the United States from approximately 1870 to 1930. These dates are of fairly significant importance, since they signal the historical epoch after the end of Reconstruction in which several laws and were passed to help enfranchise African Americans throughout the country and in the South in particular and the start of the Great Depression, the latter of which created a global economic spiral that greatly reduced the needs and desires of Whites, Blacks, and all other nationalities to one. Essentially, this article is a historical chronicle of what the living and working conditions were for African Americans during this time frame. It may be successfully argued that the author spends more time depicting the events and details of the 20th century more so than those of the end of the 19th. Yet in both of these time periods, Boles emphasizes the immense challenges African Americans inherently endured in their attempts to live in the South. The author posits that the aforementioned historical epoch was the most disadvantageous to African Americans in the United States. He presents a number of statistics and literary evidence that indicates that incidents of violence were at their highest during this time period within the rural and urban South,