Symbolism In Lorna Roth's A Christmas Carol

In Marlon Riggs’ 1992 documentary film titled Color Adjustment, Riggs, the Emmy winning producer of Ethnic Notions, continues his studies of prejudice in television. The documentary film looks at the years between 1948 and 1988 to analyze how over a 40 year period, race relations are viewed through the lens of prime time entertainment. The film examined many of television’s stereotypes and mythes and how they changed over the years.

Stereotypes in media have been around since the earliest cartoons were drawn. The media gives supposedly identifying traits with images of the stingy Jewish man, the single Hispanic woman cleaning homes to raise her three children, and the “butch” lesbian falling for the beautiful blonde who just happens to glance at her every day in the hallway. These portrayals make up general knowledge about minorities for a lot of people, but their accuracy is questionable at best. While production companies have been making strides towards the better, insufficient representation in the media tends to portray minorities as their negative stereotypes rather than as people.

In A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens utilizes a plethora of literary devices such as similes, metaphors, imagery, and denouement to explore the capacity for change. This reveals that changing is never impossible until you’re six-feet under.

In The Whites Of Their Eyes Stuart Hall goes on to talk about certain race constructiveness in the media. The article then begins to talk about how the media poses a representation of multiple ideologies, and how these ideologies define race. Stuart Hall uses logos to attract the readers trust in the article, he also uses a little ethos to persuade his audience through character that what he’s writing is in fact an important matter. Stuart goes on to talk about many different forms and practices of media pointed towards multiple dissimilar races. One could say his tactics reflect that of the media, and the examples he uses in the article mostly rely on his emotion towards his argument.

In both The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me a main theme is image. Morrison uses Claudia, an African American child, to show a distinct hatred for the beauty standard. She had such a strong disdain for Shirley Temple and the white doll she was given as a gift. Her detest for these things was because she could never have those things, the beauty was unattainable. Claudia could never be cute she could never be pretty, but Maureen Paul a little white girl could be cute, she could be pretty. Pecola another young girl in the book, was not jealous and hateful like Claudia, but instead longed for those traits. All she ever wanted was to be beautiful, and she was only seen as ugly. She thought that

All the symbolism in “A Christmas Carol” is important to convey the different messages hidden in this traditional Christmas story. I never knew that “A Christmas Carol” was an allegory and that it had hidden meanings. An allegory is a story that is supposed to express a moral or political message. Charles Dickens shows and expresses his morals through the characters in the story. Everybody knows about the classic Christmas story, but I don’t think everyone knows about the symbolism that is within the story. Charles Dickens expertly uses a traditional Christmas story to cover the symbolism hidden in “A Christmas Carol”.

What is the most pressing issue facing society today? In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison argues that it is beauty standards, even calling physical beauty “the most destructive idea[] in the history of human thought” (122). While this may seem outrageous in a world of terrorism, global warming, homelessness, and hunger, beauty standards and the feelings of inferiority that stem from them affect everybody. In severe cases, these feelings can even manifest themselves deeply inside of a person and lead to eating disorders, depression, anxiety, self-hatred, and even suicide. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison uses the insecurities of the female characters to demonstrate that beauty standards are a danger to society, as they perpetuate racism and self-hatred.

Race has become an integral part of our society, determining how we act, where we live, how educated we are; all aspects of life are touched by the constructs of race. Media has come to play an essential role in this, "perpetuating the effects of... historical oppression and... contributing to African-Americans' continuing status as second-class citizens." As the concept of race has come to develop in this country, it has become something that has rooted itself into the minds and lifestyles of those across it, media acting as the medium to which stereotypes and ideas regarding race are promoted and justified.

American Literary stage has an array of expression. It is rightly asserted by Bhongle “Almost every literary genre is rich with new notions, and new ideologies. Women’s writings in America, Afro-American Literature, and Literature of the Immigrants Experience, and of the other ethnic groups- and the actively operating small but significant factors within these broad movements - make the contemporary American Literary scenario highly appealing”

Minorities rarely have a chance to connect with characters in media. When minorities gain an opportunity to connect with characters in films, books, and televisions shows it is pertinent that non-white characters are not portrayed as stereotypes. Portraying non-whites as they are stereotypically viewed in society only contributes to the racial divide. The film Girls Trip makes strides in preventing and addressing stereotypes. The main characters promote diversity in Black characters and show a different message than the average thug movies or the “magical Negro”. However, the film also reinforces stereotypes about Black men and women. Validating stereotypes of the mad Black woman, the Black male as a pro athlete, and unstable Black families devalues some the contributions of empowerment Girls Trip makes to Black communities. Girls Trip is a question of empowerment of further social

Many different audiences have always consumed different forms of media but what are the effects of these forms of media on the audience that consumes them? In the article “City Lights: Immigrant Women and the Rise of the Movies the author Elizabeth Ewen focused on “the interaction between the social experiences of immigrant women and the images that confronted them in their daily lives” (Ewen 1980). By using multiple articles from the time period and analyzing their images and content we can determine if Ewen’s argument was viable. Throughout this topic we will be focusing on multiple issues from Motion Picture Classic Magazine.

The role of a strong black woman persists today however is more prominent now than it was during slavery. Patricia Hill-Collins argues that two of many of our society’s controlling images for black women is the matriarch and mammy. These two controlling images are plastered throughout media and movies who are, for the most part, written and produced by black men and women. This aids in justifying the fact that although the labels the white man has placed on black women are criticized by some, they are heavily believed and many black men and women currently live under these labels today.

The Bluest Eye is a novel about a black girl named Pecola Breedlove who wishes for beauty in order to attain a better life. She faces emotional and physical conflicts throughout her childhood. At eleven years old, Pecola is raped by her alcoholic father and becomes pregnant. Unlike anyone else, Claudia and Frieda MacTeer, tries to help her through the pregnancy. However, Pecola’s baby ends up dying because it is premature. In Toni Morrison’s novel, The Bluest Eye, she validates her theme of how society can corrupt people through the portrayal of a conflicted society of racism to show segregation between the white and nonwhite, symbolic blue eyes to portray what the characters desperately desire in order to have a better life, and an abused

Have you ever wondered if someone can change overnight? In this book Scrooge changed very rapidly with the ghost appearing and changing him completely . In the beginning of the story Scrooge was hateful and in the end he was very loving. But once he started to change he changed very rapidly. When the ghosts started coming he started changing , each time one ghost came he changed little by little . In the book “ a christmas carol “ by charles dickens , the theme is influenced by the process of change by scrooge 's character , and the ways he changed through the ghost 's appearance in the story.

The Bluest Eye works at different layers of the lives of black people. At one level it accounts for the racial discrimination faced by Afro-Americans throughout their life time. At another level, it is a clear narration of how internalized concepts of beauty works in the minds of blacks and they themselves become their oppressors. All through the novel we can find numerous instances where “whiteness” is the measure for beauty. This is evident in all the characters in the novel who degrade themselves for not being fair and lovely like the whites. The novel is narrated through the eyes of a ten-year old girl Claudia McTeer who witnesses white hegemony around her as well as this superiority being unquestioningly accepted by the blacks.