A Critical Review of Socrates Stances Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

A Critical Review of Socrates Stances - Essay Example Socrates stance is that the role of a philosopher in the society is parallel to that of a gadfly in stimulating a horse. As gadflies, philosophers have the responsibility of challenging the society to think clearly about things which may otherwise be taken for granted. Philosophers question the inconsistencies and fallacies that are acceptable to the rest of the society (8). Upham (71) supports this view of the Socratic gadfly, stating that philosophy involves uncovering assumptions, asking pertinent and unwelcome questions alongside mocking self seriousness. The analogy is immensely strong, as the gadfly is deemed irritating in a similar fashion by which philosophy in this approach may be quite unwelcome. The gadfly metaphor is of significant value in the academic and intellectual pursuit of philosophy since it spells out philosophers’ roles. This helps in defining practice of philosophy; without it, philosophy may be solely constrained to knowledge seeking and having no role s in society (72). ‘†¦the unexamined life is not worth living.’: In Socrates proposal for his sentence, he ponders the question of whether he should stop practicing philosophy and go into exile. To this, Socrates observes that the greatest good a man can do is to converse about virtues. He highlights the value of philosophy (examining self and others), arguing that an unexamined life is not worth living (Colaiaco 147). The context of this statement involves the issue of silencing Socrates from engaging in philosophy. As he explains in earlier passages, Socrates had been undertaking conversations with the â€Å"wise men† of Athens in a bid to determine their wisdom. Socrates believed in this as a divine calling, and in the process found out that much of the said wisdom was indeed self gratification and absent. The young people of Athens attended Socrates enquiries. Exposing the lack of wisdom among his respondents won Socrates many enemies, who then plotted h is downfall based on unfounded issues.  

Essentials of contemporary communication Assignment

Essentials of contemporary communication - Assignment Example The three skills most in demand are ability for versatile teamwork, problem solving, and communication. People are expected to work well with others and be able to switch easily from team to team, depending on the project. This implies a capacity for quick learning, high adaptability, and composure under pressure. This is an extension of teaming up and versatility a work. People who can recognize problems and implement solutions are esteemed by companies. Not only the management needs them; such people are the darlings of colleagues everywhere, and also of HR managers. Such people are blessed with the traits of thinking creatively, visualizing and suggesting solutions, knowing what to learn and how to do that at the right time. Communication skills are not just for professional advancement. Even as a personal trait it is very essential to be a welcome member of any group in family or society. But it has an added significance in the workplace—from performing the routine work, to securing timely promotions and wage hikes. Today’s communication needs can be classified broadly into three areas—written, oral and technological. Written: lot of documentation, reporting, correspondence and filling up of forms is involved in usual work. Excellence in these areas is necessary to cut one’s way through career goals. Oral: Simple speech communication matters a lot in today’s workplace. Good skills at this is needed for successfully selling your ideas to your manager for project approval, happy appraisal of work done and moving up the career ladder, giving instructions, understanding instructions and implementing things, maintaining rapport with co-workers of different levels and tempe rament, fruitful telephonic deals, interviewing people and gathering information, making presentations and a lot more. Technology: Proficiency with communication channels like telephone, fax, email,

Overview Of Beethoven And Mozart Music Essay

Overview Of Beethoven And Mozart Music Essay According to Mozarts Magic Flute and Beethoven (2004), During the XVIII century in some countries (Italy, Germany, Austria, France) results the formation of new genres and forms of instrumental music, was finally formed and reached its climax in the so-called Viennese classical school. Viennese classical school, organically absorbed the advanced achievements of the national musical culture, was itself deeply national phenomenon, rooted in the democratic culture of the Austrian people.  Representatives of the artistic direction have been V.A.  Mozart and L. van Beethoven.  Each of them was a bright personality.  Mozarts style was more typical lyric-dramatic start.  The style of Beethoven was the embodiment of heroic pathos of struggle.  However, along with the differences which result in unique individuality of each of these composers, their combined realism, life-affirming and democratic beginning. Art of Viennese classics made into world music a powerful jet of realistic and democratic, based on the wealth of folk art, and because it has preserved for us all of its value and artistic significance. Creativity of Mozart occupies a special place in the Viennese Classical School.  In his classic works of rigor and clarity of form united with deep emotion.  Music composer is close to the directions in the culture of the second half of the XVIII century. Also, there were converted to human feelings Storm and Stress, part sentimentalism, and by Mozart was first shown the contradictory inner world of the individual. According to SolomonHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_Solomon HYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_SolomonMaynard  (1995), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born in Salzburg (Austria).  With a phenomenal musical ear and memory, he was already in his early childhood, he learned to play the harpsichord, and in five years, wrote the first essay.  First teacher of the future composer was his father, Leopold Mozart Orchestra Musician Archbishop of Salzburg.  Mozart brilliantly mastered not only the harpsichord, but also organ and violin, and was famous as a brilliant improviser.  When he was six years old, he toured Europe.  At eleven, he created the first opera Apollo et Hyacinthus, and fourteen had already conducted in a theater in Milan at the premiere of his own opera Mitridate, King of Pontus. Around the same time, he was elected a member of the Philharmonic Academy of Bologna. Like many musicians of that era, Mozart was on the court service (1769-1781) he was the accompanist and organist for the Archbishop of Salzburg.  However, the independent character of the wizard causes a sharp displeasure with the archbishop, and Mozart chose to leave the service.  Of the outstanding composers of the past he was the first who chose to live as a free artist.  In 178,1  Mozart moved to Vienna, where he had a family.  He earned rare editions of his own, piano lessons and performances. Particular attention is paid to Mozart opera.  His works are an epoch in the development of this kind of music.  Opera has attracted the composer by the opportunity to show the relationship of people, their feelings and aspirations. Mozart did not try to create a new operatic form novel itself was his music.  In the mature works of the composer abandoned the strict demarcation of the opera on a serious and comic there was music and drama performance in which these elements are intertwined.  As a consequence, in the operas of Mozart has not unambiguously positive and negative characters, the characters are vibrant and multifaceted, not bound by the role. Mozart often turned to literary sources.  So the opera Le Nozze di Figaro (1786) was written on the play by French playwright Beaumarchais Crazy Day or The Marriage of Figaro, which was banned by the censor.  The main theme of the opera is love, which, however, can be said of all the works of Mozart.  However, there is in the product and the social implications: Figaro and his beloved Susanna are smart and energetic, but they are of humble origin. They were only servants in the house of Count Almaviva.  Their opposition to master (stupid and fooled aristocrat) elicits the sympathy of the author it is clear that he was on the side of love. In the opera Don Giovanni (1787), he received his musical incarnation of the medieval story of the seducer.  Energetic, temperamental, capricious and free of all moral norms, the hero confronts in the face of a Commander of a higher power, a symbol of reasonable order.  Philosophical generalization neighbors here with amorous intrigues and genre and household items.  Tragic and the comic form an indissoluble unity.  It would seem that justice prevails in the final sin (Don Giovanni) punished. But the music of the opera is thinner and harder this simplified understanding of the product: it gives the listener sympathy for the hero, remains true to herself even in the face of death. Philosophical tale The Magic Flute (1791) was written in the zingshpil genre.  The main idea of the work the inevitable victory of good over evil, calls for fortitude, to love, to understand its ultimate meaning.  Heroes of the opera are serious tests (silence, fire, water), but worthy of overcoming them and reach a realm of beauty and harmony. As a representative of the Viennese Classical School,  Mozart attached great importance to the genre of the symphony.  Especially popular are the last three symphonies Thirty-ninth, fortieth and forty-first (Jupiter), created in 1788.  Works of this genre finally anchored four-part cycle, and the rules of the sonata form. Symphonies by Mozart include a variety of subtle emotional nuances.  Topics are often uneven in nature, challenging the rhythm, sometimes accompanied by sharp run harmonies, but the music remains honed, clear form. According to SolomonHYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_Solomon HYPERLINK http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maynard_SolomonMaynard  (1995), Mozart also became one of the founders of the genre of classical concert.  The basis of competition concert soloist and orchestra, and this process is always subject to strict logic.  Composer has written twenty-seven concerts for piano and orchestra, and seven for violin and orchestra.  In some works of listeners struck a masterly skill, festivity, in other dramatic and emotional contrasts. Mozart piano works include nineteen sonatas, in which he continued to develop the sonata form, as well as essays in the genre of fantasy (of music based on improvisation and free form).  The composer refused harpsichord and clavichord, in comparison with the piano softer, but weak sound.  Mozart piano style was a clear, elegant, with well crafted melodies and accompaniment. Mozart composed the music very easily, sometimes without drafts, creating works, unsurpassed in artistic beauty and harmony.  Musicians, contemporaries appreciated talents of Mozart, but most of the aristocratic audience did not understand his work, and in recent years, the composers life did not take at all.  Mozart died in poverty and was buried in Vienna in a common grave. Music should strike a light from the human breast a word of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, whose works belong to the highest achievements of musical culture. Beethovens worldview evolved under the influence of the Enlightenment ideals of freedom and the French Revolution.  The music of his work on the one hand, continued the tradition of Viennese classicism, on the other depicted features of the new romantic art.  From classicism in the works of Beethoven upland content, excellent possession musical forms, genres appeal to the symphonies and sonatas.  From Romanticism is depicted bold experimentation in the field of these genres, the interest in vocal and piano miniatures. According to Peter J.  Davies (2002), Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn (Germany) in a family court musician.  He began studying music since childhood under the guidance of his father.  However, the present mentor, Beethoven was a composer, conductor and organist.  He taught the young musician of composition, taught to play the clavier and organ.  With eleven years of Beethoven served as assistant organist at the church, then the court organist, accompanist to the opera house in Bonn.  At eighteen he entered the University of Bonn in the Department of Philosophy, but did not finish it. In 1792,  Beethoven moved to Vienna.  He took music lessons from Haydn, Albrechtsberger, Salieri (the biggest musicians of the era). Beethoven soon began giving concerts, became popular.  He wrote a lot: he wrote sonatas, concertos for piano and orchestra, symphonies. For a long time, no one guessed that Beethoven was struck with a serious illness he began losing hearing.  Convinced of the incurable illness, the composer decided to retire from life and in 1802  prepared a will, which explained the reasons for his decision. However, Beethoven was able to overcome despair and found the strength to write music on.  Exit from the crisis was the third (Eroica) Symphony. In 1803-1808  composer also worked on the creation of the sonatas, in particular the Ninth for violin and piano (1803), Twenty-Three for piano, Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (both of 1808). Sixth (Pastoral) Symphony is subtitled Memoirs of rural life.  This work paints a different state of the human soul, suspended for the time of the inner experiences and struggles.  It was symphony of the feelings arising from contact with the natural world and rural life.  Its unusual structure had five parts instead of four.  In the symphony there are elements of fine art, onomatopoeia (birds singing, thunder, etc.).  Beethovens findings were subsequently used by many Romantic composers. Premiere of the symphony took place in 1825  at the Vienna Opera House.  To implement the authors intention theater orchestra was not enough, we had to invite fans: Twenty-four violins, ten violas, twelve cellos and basses.  For the Viennese classical orchestra, such a train, it was unusually powerful.  In addition, each choir parts (bass, tenor, alto and soprano) include twenty four singers, which also exceeded the conventional norm. During the life of Beethovens Ninth Symphony for many remains unclear, she admired only by those who knew him closely the composer and his students and educated in music listeners.  Over time, the symphony began to include in its repertoire the best orchestras of the world, and it has found new life. According to Peter J.  Davies (2002), Works of the late period was characterized by restraint of the senses and the philosophical depth that distinguishes them from the passionate and dramatic early writings.  During his life, Beethoven wrote 9 symphonies, 32 sonatas, 16 string quartets, the opera Fidelio, Missa Solemnis, 5 piano concertos and one for violin and orchestra, the overture, the individual pieces for different instruments. Surprisingly, many works (including the Ninth Symphony), the composer wrote when he was already completely deaf.  However, his recent works sonatas for piano and the quartet are great masterpieces of chamber music. Thus, I would like to say that Beethoven and Mozart affected classical music dramatically. It is difficult to overestimate their contribution and influence on the development of classical music.  Masters of this style sought to clear and strict forms, harmonious patterns, and the embodiment of high moral ideals. Higher, the finest examples of art works they considered an ancient art, so that worked out ancient stories and images. Vertex in the development of musical classicism was the work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, who worked mainly in Vienna and formed a line in the musical culture of the second half of XVIII early XIX century the Viennese Classical School. The composers of the Viennese classical school have created a very harmonious and logical system of rules of construction works.  Thanks to this system, the most complex feelings donned in a clear and perfect form.  Suffering and joy have become the subject of reflection for the composer, rather than experience.  The art of the Viennese classics has great value and artistic significance for all mankind.

Emily Dickinsons Faith and Daisy Miller by Henry James Essay -- Henry

American writers and poets of the 19th century created literature to criticize and detail the imperfections of society. Emily Dickinson, who retired from contact with the outside world by the age of twenty-three in favor of a life of isolation, can arguably be considered such a poet. Her untitled poem "Faith" can be interpreted as criticism of the masculine-dominated society of her time and supports themes in Henry James's work Daisy Miller: A Study, which also criticizes societal expectations and practices. The first two lines of Dickinson's poem "Faith" read: "‘Faith' is a fine invention/When Men can see-," the capitalization stressing the words "faith," "when," and "men," suggesting that men can be trusted to believe what is right only when their vision is not blinded by things such as the prejudice and societal expectations. Winterbourne, the main character in Henry James's story Daisy Miller: A Study, is a representative of common 19th century masculine-dominated society of the elite, and a product of all the accompanying prejudices. It is therefore that Winterbourne cannot help but find some fault in Miss Daisy Miller, who he meets for the first time during a visit to Vevey and who "talked to Winterbourne as if she had known him a long time. He found it quite pleasant" (330). Before society forces him to find fault with Daisy, his instincts allow him to take pleasure in her company and to see her for who she truly is, simply "a person much disposed towards conversation" (329). However, it is not long before Winterbourne feels a need to place her within the rigid expectations proper to her class and gender. He begins to find her disposition towards conversation and acknowledgment to having a great deal of gentlemen's... ...some Italian" (363) for Winterbourne to recognize his mistake. Like looking through a microscope, the clues of Daisy's innocence are finally brought to light, into focus, and are undeniably evident. Faith failed Mr. Winterbourne, as he was unable to see past what society expected him to see, and it was only through hard facts and evidence-the testimony of the dying girl and the Italian man with whom she spent most of her time-that Mr. Winterbourne could finally accept Daisy as she was, truly a girl disposed to conversation and nothing else. He tells his aunt that Daisy "sent me a message before her death which I didn't understand at the time. But I have understood it since. She would have appreciated one's esteem" (364), meaning that Daisy would have liked to be thought of kindly and not labeled as someone or something she was not, and never gave evidence to being.

Why do people do what they love doing for their profession

Why do people do what they love doing for their profession, rather than working at a job that will get them more money? Or why did people who get a lot of money from their job not follow their dream careers? Everyday men and women of all ages and aspirations start their paths on their future goals, life careers, and who they plan to be. But at what cost? Every day I see men and women choosing their careers. Careers that pay well.And careers that re the most enjoyable and fulfilling but doses t pay the best. I don't go a day without thinking about my future and what it will have in Store for me. It always seems so easy at first. Just choose a career and off I go. But there remains the temptations, the regrets, that hole in your heart. That last missing puzzle piece that you don't know what it is or where to find it. The opinions and oppressions of others put me down and turn me away from my dream.Then the friends and idols I have met or seen have raised me up in such a way like no oth ers alike them could make me think as positive about my life as I think now. Since the age of 8 I've yearned to be an actor. On stage, in movies, in TV shows, in musicals, you name it. I've always wanted to express my god given emotions and share my talent with the world for all to see. When I was 8, I went with my school on a field trip to see a play. The production was Aladdin. The second saw the sets, the costumes and everything put together, I instantly dreamed to do that for the future.At this same time I had played baseball. I decided to do both musicals and baseball. Then that's when the regrets came. Everyone would tell me, â€Å"Why do musicals? Athletes get paid millions to play baseball, you're not making that much in musicals. Instantly right when had just decided on my career in life, I was already getting told that shouldn't do something that doesn't pay well. I was only 8. Had no real idea of the value of a dollar and still, what they said affected me.

Coraline

Coraline is a horrific children’s book that was produced into a movie in 2009. Written by Neil Gaiman, the book was published in 2003 as juvenile fiction. Gaiman’s twisted ingenious mind has even frightened adult readers. This creepy fairy tale clearly draws much of its inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. What started out as a children’s novel became a hit movie in theaters. What is so spectacular about Coraline may be the colorful characters, the unexpected turn of events within the story, or the fact that it is the first stop(Stop? animation movie to be viewed in 3-D. The combination of Gaiman’s story with Selick’s (who is Selick? Producer? ) talent for movie presentation has made Coraline a remarkably entrancing and horrifying fairy tale for both readers and movie watchers as they experience the entrancing adventure of a little girl who learned the price of opening a door that was not meant to be opened. Before Coraline hit the big screen it made an everlasting impression as a children’s horrific fairytale. It turns out that Coraline’s name came about because Neil Gaiman kept messing up spelling Caroline. Reading Coraline makes it easy for the first time readers to relate to her character when they think back to their current or past adolescence. Most people would admit to times in their young lives when they were relentless pessimists and complainers, who acted bored and coughed up attitudes on a daily basis. Everyone could share Coraline’s plight when they had felt that there was nothing to do in a new house and were reluctant to meet new people. Viewers and readers alike have also felt a special connection between her family and their own. Children always think about what the perfect mother would be like, and parents also try to be the best for their children. However, both age groups try to imagine something better. Unlike Coraline, no one had ever found a mysterious small door in the living room that led to an almost perfect alternate reality that catered to your every whim. The movie begins with viewers seeing a doll that resembles an African-American child floating into a dark house greeted by hands made out of needles. Accompanied by the traditional chilling soundtrack that follows all Tim Burton films the doll is refashioned. Two hands disembowel a doll and then reassemble it with needle and thread. While not the most warm and fuzzy scene in any cinematic form, what makes it particularly ghoulish is the feeling that you could run your fingers through the doll’s sawdust innards and touch its button eyes† (Clark). The doll is then dressed in a yellow raincoat and blue jeans. As soon as it is finished the mysterious needle hands sends the doll out the window where it floats out in space. This is where we find out that the doll replicates our heroine Coraline Jones. Coraline, voiced by Dakota Fanning, and her parents, voiced by Teri Hatcher and John Hodgman, had just moved into the Pink Palace, it is a pink house spilt into floors as apartments in the woodsy area of Oregon. Coraline finds the house completely droll and far from the home and friends that she knew. While she explores her new home she finds, as Pratt writes: â€Å"A [Russian Gymnast, Mr. Bobinsky, who lives in the attic] tells Coraline that he's training his circus mice to play music, and Coraline finds him vaguely alarming, if only because she can't tell whether he's serious or joking. Miss Spink and Miss Forcible, two aging former actresses, live downstairs with a coterie of Scottie dogs. The ladies are happy to dispense tea, inedible cookies, and advice, and they read Coraline's tea leaves, which indicate that she's in danger. † She meets Wyborn, voiced by Robert Bailey Jr. , as Ebert describes, a â€Å"young hunchback whose full name is Wyborn, and it doesn’t take Coraline long to wonder why his parents named him that. † Wybie had found the doll that looked just like Coraline in his grandmother’s trunk and gave it to her. Little did Wybie know, he had given her the doll that was created in the beginning of the film, that was made by the feared Beldam, a witch. She also meets a very aloof cat that turns out to be one of her few allies in her greatest times of danger. In the living room she starts to unpack her set of snow globes, looking fondling on a winter scene in Detroit Michigan, her last home. Coraline discovers that her doll who was sitting on a chair had moved behind a box. As she retrieved the doll, it was found resting against a tiny door with a key hole on it. Coraline begged her mother to find the key that would unlock it. Her mother reluctantly obliged and makes Coraline promise that she will stay out of her mom’s way if she did this favor for her. Coraline replies yes, eager to see what was behind the door. Her mother shuffles through keys in a drawer, picking one whose handle end was in the shape of a button. As fast as Coraline’s heart rose, it sank. There was nothing behind the door but brick walls. Later that night Coraline had been awoken by a mouse that lead her to the door, when she open it and found a long tunnel with a light at the end. Excited for the adventure to come she crawled down the tunnel that, to her surprise, opened right into her own living room. Now though it looked like her real living room, everything was brighter and had a more welcoming atmosphere. Coraline was lured by the smell of real home cooking when she discovered her mother in the kitchen. Pullman said, â€Å"When she discovers a sinister woman there, who looks a little like her mother but has eyes that are big black buttons, the matter-of-factness of the woman's response when Coraline says â€Å"Who are you? † is both disarming and terrifying. â€Å"I'm your other mother,† she says. Coraline finds out that she has other version of all the residents including her parents in the Pink Palace. Mr. Bobinsky, is a very entertaining circus ringleader with synchronized mice that are able to perform fantastical acrobats. Ms. Spink and Ms. Forcible became active and energetic acrobatic performers on a massive stage where they took Coraline to partake in swinging from high wire swings above the crowd of terrier dogs below. Even Wybie, her newest friend is a double that mysteriously doesn’t talk. The Other Mother told Coraline that she felt she would enjoy him more that way. This perfect world that she finds changes her entire perspective on the life that she knew on the other side of the door. Her real parents were busy working for a plant publishing journal, while her other parents were tentative, caring, expressive, and just plain fun. But Coraline learns eventually that even though her other home seems perfect, there is something very peculiar and dark that lurks beneath the button eyes of all the people she meets. Button eyes are a great symbolism in Coraline. These buttons represents not having a soul. Coraline’s other mother turns out to be this cruel creature, he Beldam, who lures children through the secret door. She creates this perfect world for the child, giving them everything they wanted, promising to love them, and the only way a child could stay in this wonderful world is to have their eyes sewn shut and replaced with buttons. Once Coraline is told of this offer by her other mother, she realizes that her other mother’s intentions are hardly loving or parental. Collins writes, â€Å"Coraline meets the ghosts of several other children who had been kidnapped hundreds of years ago, and she realizes that her both her body and spirit are in danger. Coraline discovers that the black cat that has been lurking around the premises is able to talk to her in the other world. He gives Coraline clues for her to realize that everything is not as it seems. To viewers he would be related to the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland. The cat tells Coraline that in order to set her parents free and the souls of the three children that she must challenge her to a game. Vejvoa said, â€Å"She has to muster the strength and courage to confront and defeat her monstrous Other Mother is she’s to rescue her real parents and get back to where she truly belongs. Her Other Mother cannot refuse any game as long as she thinks that she can win. Coraline is clever enough to come up with a game where she must look through the house and garden to find all the souls and eyes of the children before the lunar eclipse or she will give up her soul to the Other Mother. Coraline faces three dangers in three wonders that her other mother had created for her. Each of the children’s eyes were trapped in three different objects. The first soul was found in the garden where her other father had sacrificed himself for her to retrieve the soul. The second soul was found on the stage of the two actresses. The third was found in the dark and eerie mice circus tent. Once every soul was collected, Coraline had only to find her parents, who were trapped in a snow globe.. It came to the final task, defeating the witch. What used to looked so much like her real mother stood, a skeletal, towering, spider like woman that was anything but motherly. Coraline tricked her other mother to open the small door between home and the created world. As fast as she could react, Coraline tossed the cat at the Other Mother and she made a run for the door with all of the souls. The Other Mother broke free from the cat and chased after her through the tunnel. Coming through the door Coraline used all of her strength to shut it completely. But the Other Mother had her hand stuck then torn off from her wrists landing on the floor. The hand had disappeared, and the souls were set free. Although the souls and her parents were free the Other Mother’s needle hand was still at large and wanted the key to the door at all costs because there was only one. Everything seemed normal until Coraline decided to throw the key to the door away. She trekked to the well where she approached the opening of the well. Out of nowhere the Other Mother’s hand leaps out to grab the key, but since it is on a string wrapped around Coraline’s neck, she was being choked until Wybie had crushed the hand with a huge rock. The hand is tied within the blanket with the string holding the key and is thrown down the well. After vanquishing the Other Mother, all of the lost souls of the children were set free. The movie ends with Coraline and her parents hosting a garden party in which they had finally started planting and creating a beautiful atmosphere. Here all of her neighbors, Wybie, and Wybie’s grandmother come to gather. Coraline tells Wybie’s grandmother of what happened in the house and how she saved her twin sister’s soul. Coraline is no longer as pessimistic or as unpleasant when she started her adventure. The movie ends with a chilling song of children voices that makes viewers get the shivers when they recall the scariest moments. This film was hailed by all age groups, and more so towards the adult crowds. According to Ebert, â€Å"this is a movie for people who know and care about drawing, caricature, grotesquerie and the far shores of storytelling. In short, you might care little about a fantasy, little indeed about this story, and still admire the artistry of it all, [it] gets under our psychic fingernails. † Coraline is certainly a darker version of a family film when compared to Disney, but that is what makes it much more intense and rememerable. Cinema reviewer, Kernion said: â€Å"It isn't gory or excessively violent (certainly not as much as Prince Caspian), but there are some pretty frightening threats, and the peril that main characters often face can seem real and intense. It's similar in tone at times to Spirited Away — if you think your kids can handle the Miyazaki film, they should be fine with Coraline. † However, not all viewers and critics were impressed with the big hit movie. Jim Vejvoda, said, â€Å"a story where a mother plucks out kids' eyes and replaces them with buttons or sews their mouths shut might be a wee bit too torture prone for some members of toon-going crowd to stomach. † A movie blogger, Sean, said, â€Å"Coraline really clicked for me. It takes a while to get rolling, but once the twist is revealed and we understand the true extent of Coraline’s predicament, it’s hard not to be completely absorbed. The storytelling is on par with a Pixar film, or even Guillermo Del Toro’s critically-acclaimed Pan’s Labyrinth. † When comments were all said and done about the actual story, critics, and movie goers alike were both please and displeased when it came to the 3-D presentation of the film. 3-D films have become very popular in our recent movie viewing trend, however Henry Selick, the movie director, doesn’t want audiences to focus on the 3-D. According to Clark, â€Å"3-D is just a means to end, to showcase the medium he loves to work in: stop-motion animation, in which the hands and every other part of the characters in the movie are manipulated frame by frame to achieve movement and expression and to tell a story. † Selick has previously been honored for directing, The Nightmare Before Christmas. Coraline racked up a total of $60 million dollars for the stop motion animation to come to life via 3-D. Coraline has entranced and horrified both readers and movie watchers through the eyes of a once very unpleasant girl who learned the cost of being careful what she wished for. Neil Gaiman’s way of putting a twist on this story is what makes Coraline so chilling and mesmerizing. Coraline’s story is truly frightening, and Gaiman goes to great lengths to forge an ‘other’ mother world where every aspect of our lives is perverted and twisted into the macabre† (Collins). He teaches us that even though children, even adults, who think that the grass is greener on the other side, don’t know what they have until they lose it.

Origins of the Vietnam War From 1945â€1954

Origins of the Vietnam War From 1945–1954 The causes of the Vietnam War trace their roots back to the end of World War II. A French colony, Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia) had been occupied by the Japanese during the war. In 1941, a Vietnamese nationalist movement, the Viet Minh, was formed by Ho Chi Minh to resist the occupiers. A communist, Ho Chi Minh waged a guerrilla war against the Japanese with the support of the United States. Near the end of the war, the Japanese began to promote Vietnamese nationalism and ultimately granted the country nominal independence. On August 14, 1945, Ho Chi Minh launched the August Revolution, which effectively saw the Viet Minh take control of the country. The French Return Following the Japanese defeat, the Allied Powers decided that the region should remain under French control. As France lacked the troops to retake the area, Nationalist Chinese forces occupied the north while the British landed in the south. Disarming the Japanese, the British used the surrendered weapons to rearm French forces that had been interned during the war. Under pressure from the Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh sought to negotiate with the French, who desired to retake possession of their colony. Their entrance into Vietnam was only permitted by the Viet Minh after assurances had been given that the country would gain independence as part of the French Union. First Indochina War Discussions soon broke down between the two parties and in December 1946, the French shelled the city of Haiphong and forcibly reentered the capital, Hanoi. These actions began a conflict between the French and the Viet Minh, known as the First Indochina War. Fought mainly in North Vietnam, this conflict began as a low level, rural guerrilla war, as Viet Minh forces conducted hit and run attacks on the French. In 1949, fighting escalated as Chinese communist forces reached the northern border of Vietnam and opened a pipeline of military supplies to the Viet Minh.   French paratroopers taking part in Operation Castor, a parachute drop on Dien Bien Phu in the Thai district during the Indo-China war. Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images  Ã‚   Increasingly well-equipped, the Viet Minh began more direct engagement against the enemy and the conflict ended when the French were decisively defeated at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The war was ultimately settled by the Geneva Accords of 1954, which temporarily partitioned the country at the 17th parallel, with the Viet Minh in control of the north and a non-communist state to be formed in the south under Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem. This division was to last until 1956, when national elections would be held to decide the future of the nation. The Politics of American Involvement Initially, the United States had little interest in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, however, as it became clear that the post-World War II world would be dominated by the US and its allies and the Soviet Union and theirs, isolating communist movements took an increased importance. These concerns were ultimately formed into the doctrine of containment and domino theory. First spelled out 1947, containment identified that the goal of Communism was to spread to capitalist states and that the only way to stop it was to â€Å"contain† it within its present borders. Springing from containment was the concept of domino theory, which stated that if one state in a region were to fall to Communism, then the surrounding states would inevitably fall as well. These concepts were to dominate and guide US foreign policy for much of the Cold War. In 1950, to combat the spread of Communism, the United States began supplying the French military in Vietnam with advisors and funding its efforts against the â€Å"red† Viet Minh. This aid nearly extended to direct intervention in 1954, when the use of American forces to relieve Dien Bien Phu was discussed at length. Indirect efforts continued in 1956, when advisors were provided to train the army of the new Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) with the goal of creating a force capable of resisting Communist aggression. Despite their best efforts, the quality of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) was to remain consistently poor throughout its existence. The Diem Regime South Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem (1901 - 1963) watching an agricultural show just minutes after an assassination attempt had been made on his life. Keystone/Stringer/Getty Images  Ã‚   A year after the Geneva Accords, Prime Minister Diem commenced a â€Å"Denounce the Communists† campaign in the south. Throughout the summer of 1955, Communists and other opposition members were jailed and executed. In addition to attacking the communists, the Roman Catholic Diem assaulted Buddhist sects and organized crime, which further alienated the largely Buddhist Vietnamese people and eroded his support. In the course of his purges, it is estimated that Diem had up to 12,000 opponents executed and as many as 40,000 jailed.  To further cement his power, Diem rigged a referendum on the future of the country in October 1955 and declared the formation of the Republic of Vietnam, with its capital at Saigon. Despite this, the US actively supported the Diem regime as a buttress against Ho Chi Minh’s communist forces in the north. In 1957, a low-level guerrilla movement began to emerge in the south, conducted by Viet Minh units that had not returned north after the accords. Two years later, these groups successfully pressured Ho’s government into issuing a secret resolution calling for an armed struggle in the south. Military supplies began to flow into the south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, and the following year the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (Viet Cong) was formed to carry out the fight. Failure and Deposing Diem The situation in South Vietnam continued to deteriorate, with corruption rife throughout the Diem government and the ARVN unable to effectively combat the Viet Cong. In 1961, the newly elected Kennedy Administration promised more aid and additional money, weapons, and supplies were sent with little effect. Discussions then began in Washington regarding the need to force a regime change in Saigon. This was accomplished on November 2, 1963, when the CIA aided a group of ARVN officers to overthrow and kill Diem. His death led to a  period of political instability that saw the rise and fall of a succession of military governments. To help deal with the post-coup chaos, Kennedy increased the number of US advisors in South Vietnam to 16,000. With Kennedys death later that same month, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson ascended to the presidency and reiterated the US commitment to fighting communism in the region.