Downtown Los Angeles is one of the busiest commercial centers in the United States. However, the city holds two groups of people in different economic level-the homeless and the working class. Hector Tobar frequently includes the landscape of the setting in downtown Los Angeles in The Tattooed Soldier. The novel is about two immigrants from Guatemala who have moved to Los Angeles. The protagonist, Antonio, takes a revenge on the antagonist, Longoria because he murdered Antonio's wife and son when he was a Guatemalan soldier. Tobar applies a number of metaphors to connect the buildings and freeways in downtown to Antonio's position in the city. Buildings, freeways, and shadows are metaphors for Antonio's economic and social status. …show more content…
The stock exchange building represents material life and the windowless building represents security. Antonio can observe these buildings that illustrate an ideal life, but he belongs to none of the qualities that are associated with these buildings. He is exposed to all the danger of the city with no money at all. Clearly, this reflects the poverty level of the protagonist compared to the working class in Los Angeles. The people who are inside these buildings are having a good life, but Antonio is homeless; he does not even have money to rent a shelter to protect himself.
The structure of the freeways illustrates the lack of freedom in the protagonist's social life. In the beginning of the story, the author uses "sleep under the freeway" repetitively to emphasize Antonio's low social status (9). Freeways represent work and economic activity, but Antonio has fallen off the track. He is now under the freeway because he has dropped from the flow of the busy city life to the lowest level in Los Angeles. Antonio was a scholar in Guatemala, but he works as a bus boy and later becomes homeless after he moved to Los Angeles. The author states, "Los Angeles made him [Antonio] short" (53). Antonio's social status is lowered by the city. He has become so "short" that it is almost impossible for the others to notice him. A factor that lowers Antonio's social status is communication. Antonio meets Frank in the homeless camp who says that people are switching lane so
Despite most Americans associating the word “immigrant” with Mexicans, there is a whole wide spectrum to the word “immigrant”. Not only did Mexicans and other Latino groups come to the U.S. to find jobs, but Central Americans also came to the U.S. to escape the chaos that was occurring in their home countries. The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar, illustrates these aspects of power, difference and inequality by describing the story of Antonio Bernal traveling to the U.S. to escape his death by a Guatemalan death squad only to find himself in the same city as the killer of his wife and son. Throughout the novel we see how the discrimination against race, class, gender, and sexuality make it difficult for those who migrate to the U.S. in
Outcasts in society are in need of love and compassion. In the book Tattoos on The Heart by Gregory Boyle, Father Greg gives gang members an opportunity to better themselves by providing them with jobs. Attention makes gang members realize they are worthy.
The book I read to better understand and gain sympathy for returning citizens is Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion (ISBN 978-1439153154) by Father Gregory Boyle, S.J. $14 can afford this 240-page autobiography about a Jesuit priest serving one of the most troubled neighborhoods in the most unique way.
Life during the Civil War was not a pleasant time. There was basically utter chaos
Not every man who 's fought in a war planned on doing so. In fact, not all of them even want to. It 's rare to find enough people voluntarily willing to lay down their lives for their country, so more often than not militaries used what we would call “citizen soldiers.” Citizen soldiers are exactly what they sound like, regular citizens taken from society and turned into people capable of serving in the military. Although it may seem obvious when plainly written out, citizen soldiers had vastly different experiences compared to career soldiers, and Stephen Ambrose attempted to pin down that specific experience in his book Citizen Soldier. Ambrose uses oral interviews from World War II veterans and other materials to explain the experiences of the common American soldier who served in WWII between D-Day and the eventual surrender of the German forces. However, when examining his book, it 's important to ask how successful Ambrose was in painting an accurate picture of this kind of soldier 's life during his service. Is the information he uses specific to the men who served in Europe, or can it also be linked back to the soldiers in the Pacific? This paper will evaluate his work by comparing it to oral interviews from WWII veterans both from the same areas that Ambrose 's veterans serve in and in locations not included in his work.
In his novel Tattoos on the Heart, author Father Gregory Boyle S.J. shares his experiences as a pastor in the gang capital of the United States, Los Angeles, in an attempt to persuade his readers to look at gang members with a more humane perspective. To help his readers relate to the gang members, Fr. Boyle recounts personal anecdotes about the many gang members he works with and their journeys towards changing their lives. Through his use of colloquial language and informal diction and his narration of personal stories, Fr. Boyle creates an intimate tone accomplishes his purpose of discrediting the stereotypes associated with gangs and depicting a human face worthy of respect and sympathy. Though Boyle published this novel in 2010, his insight and wisdom on the state of gang violence still hold true today, and he continues to inspire his readers to recognize the tragedies many gang members face in their everyday lives.
Edgar Allan Poe is a well known profound writer because of his great works of fiction through short stories and poetry. Often times inciting fear and suspense into readers by the use of tone and subject in a various literature ways. Evidently in stories such as The Masque of the Red Death, The Tale-Tell Heart, and The Raven being that they are all well known. Poe an unforgettable writer, because of his horror stories and writing style has created stories and poems that are classical and often spoken about. As well as inducing a sense of suspense to his own readers, he has become an inspiriting to a handful of writers to implement techniques similar to those of Poe and inspire certain character characteristics. Using different methods of writing and presenting stories Edgar Allen Poe has become and will forever be a key influencer in horror themed stories and poems.
‘The tattoo’ is a novel which was written by Chris McKinney about a young adult named Ken ‘Kenji’ Hideyoshi who was sent to the Halawa Correctional Institute. Inside he tells his personal struggle of living life as a Japanese male brought up in Hawai’i, being exposed to poverty, colonialism, violence, urban gangs, and drugs. In this essay, I will argue that one can learn criminal and violent behaviour by those who they hold close interpersonal relationships with, for example, family and friends. In saying that, I will be using the social learning theory looking in particular at Edwin Sutherland and his notion of differential association and Akers concept of differential reinforcement to explore the relationship between Ken Hideyoshi and Koa Puana.
Setting explores the main idea of disempowerment and isolation and aptly allows the audience to contrast it with the life of the main character. From the story, we are told that the setting is in a newsagency shop in a country town near a harbour. We are also told that the country town has a smelly harbour breeze. By using the country town as the setting, the author has placed us as readers to imagine isolation and places being far away, making it easier to convey ideas of the story. The isolation of the country town illustrates the life of the main character. She is isolated and stuck in the shop and town where she has no power to leave due to her parents. For example, “Once a day the big Greyhound rolled past going north to the city” and “Sometimes she would bicycle out to the edge of town and look along the highways”. Using the word city, the author is creating an atmosphere of adventure and the highway creates a sense of belonging. Through setting, the author is able to covey the main idea of isolation and disempowerment effectively and letting us as readers connect the relationship between the setting and the main character’s life.
The atmosphere of this exposition is clearly foreboding: "the dark clouds, broken chimneys, unused street, solitary cat, and dead air" all prove ominous and reflect the sordid ruling mood. Failed culture and solitary of aimless women ("a cat moved itself in and out of railing") not knowing exactly what to do about their predicaments in which
I really enjoyed this play as it kept me wondering what will happen next and taught me some life lessons on how people react or make decisions. As I read on this play goes into the man Sergeant Vernon C. Waters personality and who he really was. We learn that Sergeant Waters hates being black and anyone who may exhibit black characteristics or stereotypes for example. For example in Act Two we learn that Sergeant Waters does not really like C.J. as he frames him and provokes him to attack so that he could be arrested for any reason. Sergeant Waters admits to this is Act Two and wanted C,J. arrested so the world would be free of one more simpleton colored boy. In Sergeant Waters’s
To signify this, the reader is presented with a well described scenery that can be seen from the building in which the story takes place. However, the pretty image goes away when the speaker says "[e]njoy this view while photocopying (287)." Orozco describes the view to make the reader think about a whole different setting. He purposefully allows the reader to wander through that view and then drags it back with that simple statement to create a sense of being trapped. Like a bird on a pretty cage. Ultimately, the listener of the story is trapped inside the building. This refers back to how most people conduct their lives regarding work. They focus too much on trying to afford a good or pretty life that they end up missing on it, looking at the scenery from inside a cage called work. The author uses this to allude to the easiness with which one can be hold back by things that appear to have a greater value; thus, ignoring the things that do have
Tattoos have been around throughout our history, from Egyptian times to the present day. Many people may say they know the history of tattoos, and where they originate from, but do they really? Does one know that there were reasons that some people had tattoos? There may be people who know the actual history of tattoos and body art and why one would decide to get one; however there are people who do not. To be able to understand the idea of tattoos, one should educate themselves to the history of tattoos. Although tattoos have been considered taboo and a stereotype, history reveals that this particular form of body art has been used for self expression, status and
Tattoos are becoming a popular phenomenon that is seen everywhere. Today’s youth are getting permanent tattoos to be cool and trendy, but are not considering the long-term effects. Teenagers should be aware of all that body modification may include, it is not just a pretty picture. Adolescences must consider the dangers and conscientious result of attaining diseases, being underage, and having a permanent mark on their body.
The film’s opening title - “The story of industry, of individual enterprise - humanity crusading in the pursuit of happiness” - is followed by a symbolic image of a flood of men and women flowing out of the subway station similar to the rows of sheep. From this we can easily understand how like sheep, these herds of men and women do as they are told and flow into the city’s