A Psychoanalytic Analysis: City Of God

In the book The Devil in The White City by Erik Larson, the city of Chicago is used to show the great failures and successes of the United States. The story takes place a few years before and during the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition (World’s Fair) in Chicago. Larson focuses on the stories of Daniel Burnham, the director at the exposition, and Dr. H.H. Holmes, a serial killer. Daniel Burnham shows how America is a land of opportunity, and even in the face of many hardships succeeds in his goal of having a successful exposition. The Devil in The White City reflects the extremes of character in America because it shows American ingenuity, optimistic naivete, and the complete loss of morality.

(insert an attention grabber, such as a quote or question). In Erik Larson's “The Devil in the White City”, (a nonfiction novel that spans the years surrounding the building of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair) that recreates the lives of two real men, Daniel Burnham, the architect who builds the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who exploits the fair to find his victims. Larson uses intense imagery, juxtaposition, and allusion to create pure and immoral tones between Daniel Burnham and H. H. Holmes. In the novel Larson uses intenses imagery to thoroughly illustrate the coexistence of good and evil.

How do human beings talk about God in the face of poverty and suffering? This is the question the Book of Job raises for us. A moral and honorable man lives a prosperous, happy and fruitful life. As a wager between God and Satan on the issue of disinterested religion, they test to see if his faith and religion are actually disinterested. This leads to another question of whether human beings are capable of asserting their faith and talking about God in the face of suffering in a disinterested way. In his book “On Job: God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent” Gustavo Gutierrez makes the point that human beings, especially the poor, are capable of a disinterested faith and knowledge of God in the face of suffering. His application of liberation theology, way of talking about God, and interest in the poor allow Gutierrez to assert that human beings are capable of a disinterested religion in the face of poverty and suffering.

The United States of America is characterized in many different ways. Some people may say it is a land of opportunity and success, while others would argue that it is a place of regret. In The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson, the United States is described as a mixture of good and evil. Larson accomplishes this reflection of America by telling a story which follows two different men with opposing motives. The first is Burnham, the architect in charge of building the World’s Fair. He is determined to make America a prideful nation. However, Holmes, the serial killer, has despicable reasons for wanting the fair. These two characters help show who America is and what it stands for. In his book, Erik Larson indicates that the United States is comprised of both good and evil by displaying the motives, conflicts, and resourcefulness of its people.

Determined to help his audience - people who stereotype against and do not understand gang life - find commonalities with gang members, Fr. Boyle shares his experiences with gangs in Los Angeles. At the beginning of the novel, Fr. Boyle articulates his thesis and expresses his purpose for sharing his experiences when he states, “Though this book does not concern itself with solving the gang problem, it does aspire to broaden the parameters of our kinship. It hopes not only to put a human face on the gang member, but to recognize our own wounds in the broken

In this text titled GOD by Simon Blackburn, the protagonist agues of beliefs and other things. I am going to argue that there does not exist a super or godlike being who is all good, all knowing, all powerful. (40 words)

Throughout the story, Lost in the City by Edwards P. Jones there are many different ways the city influences the different characters. Lost in the City takes the reader through some difficult times of many African Americans in Washington. The different characters form bond that cannot be broken in order to handle what life throws at them. In the stories "The Girl Who Raised Pigeons" and "The First Day" the city influences the different main characters in different ways, to help them come of age.

     The City of God is based on actual events that occurred in Rio de Janeiro during the 1960’s and 1970’s. The movie is about the rise and fall of a fearsome sociopath gang leader Li’l Ze, who reigned as king of the drug lords during the 70’s. The first part of the movie illustrates some of the forces that mold Li’l Ze into the man he becomes, while the second half shows his ruthless leap to power, followed by the war he wages against opposing gang leaders Carrot and Knockout Ned. The film is narrated by Rocket, a photographer who exists on the outskirts of Li’l Ze’s circle of dominance and control. In the film the city is filled with ruthless acts of delinquency and is basically in

In Martin Scorcese's Taxi Driver, Travis Bickle repeatedly expresses two ideas that are central to the film. First, Travis has an undying wish to purify the world. He wants to rid his city of all the evil and scum that currently inhabits the city's cold and damp streets. Second, is the method by which Travis tries to obtain his goals. Travis Bickle tries to clean up his city by methods similar to those of religious figures. He even takes on a role as a savior figure. Travis Bickle's quest to save the world via religious ideas fails, and instead results is a bloodbath.

“City of God ‘has nothing to do with the Rio you see in the postcards’. It is a 1960s-style housing project that, in tandem with increasing drug dealing, became, already by the 1980s, one of the most dangerous places in Rio. It is a place abandoned by God and justice, where police hardly ever come and where residents’ life expectancy does not considerably exceed the twenties”EXPAND (Diken 2).

Laughter Out of Place: Race, Class, Violence and Sexuality in a Rio Shantytown- Donna M Goldstein

The author of this book sticks to historical facts, especially on the fair, but Larson’s book does hint it at a couple underlying biases he may have towards these subjects. First of all, he seems to show major bias towards criminal investigation in the 1890s. For example, Larson states that “One of the most striking, and rather charming, aspects of criminal investigation in the 1890s is the extent to which police gave reporters direct access to crime scenes, even while investigations were in progress” (395). It is obvious that Larson thinks that how investigations in the 1890s are intriguing because of how they were conducted. Larson also dedicates most of the ending of his book to details on the investigation on Holmes. Therefore, one bias

The book The Devil In the White City by Erik Larson re-tells the story of Chicago’s World Fair, while H.H. Holmes, also known as “America’s first serial killer”, emerges as a dark force within the fair. Switching back and forth between the experiences of the head fair administrator, Burnham, and the other directors along with the evils of Holmes, the reader begins to understand the world of tragedy and crime that lies behind the public’s excitement. From a devastating storm to the deaths of multiple builders, suspense builds as tragedy is followed by more tragedy. Through the use of contrasting ideas and ethical clauses highlighted by symbolisms and descriptions within the book, Erik Larson creates an underlying argument that one’s pursuit of pride and success often causes destruction and comes at the price of another’s well-being.

City of God is a depicts the reality of the narrator’s life growing up in the slums on the outskirts of Rio. What was meant to be a small film project became a success in many ways. Although it quickly became an international sensation winning numerous awards the filmmakers were also successful with their use of various components of cinematography. One critic said that “City of God is a wildly entertaining film. The sheer energy of the movie is never less than compelling. Meirelles pulls out every filmmaking trick in the book, utilizing freeze-frames, montage, flashback, quick-cutting, and even strobe lights” (Millikan 1). I will analyze various scenes from the film and explain how each successfully applied film techniques. “The

Through out history, as man progressed from a primitive animal to a "human being" capable of thought and reason, mankind has had to throw questions about the meaning of our own existence to ourselves. Out of those trail of thoughts appeared religion, art, and philosophy, the fundamental process of questioning about existence. Who we are, how we came to be, where we are going, what the most ideal state is....... All these questions had to be asked and if not given a definite answer, then at least given some idea as to how to begin to search for, as humans probed deeper and deeper into the riddle that we were all born into.