Author John M. Barry, in The Great Influenza, claims that scientists must embrace uncertainty and doubt their ideas in order to be successful in their research. To support his claim, he first states that “uncertainty creates weakness”, then lists the traits required by scientists (including curiosity and creativity), and finally explains that experiments must be made to work by the investigator. The purpose of this is to further support his claim in order to encourage readers to embrace uncertainty because certainty creates something to lean on, while uncertainty forces one to manipulate experiments to produce answers. Barry adopts a formal tone to appeal to a worldwide audience, specifically those interested in scientific research, by using
John M. Barry addresses his feelings about scientists and their research through the piece from, “The Great Influenza,” an account of the 1918 flu epidemic. He adopts a speculative tone and utilizes rhetorical strategies such as fallacies, metaphors, and word choice to characterize scientists research. Barry describes the positive mind set and the requirements to be a scientists.
“When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth” (Romero). These words of the main character, Peter, in Dawn of the Dead mirror the situation taking place in the film. With zombies running amok throughout the country, four survivors hijack a traffic helicopter to escape and search for a place to barricade themselves. After landing at a shopping mall, they build themselves a make-shift apartment and overtake the mall, killing all the undead in their path. Homologous with America’s present economic and social culture, consumption is important to the survivors and the zombies. Although George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is seemingly an apocalyptic-age zombie film, it exposes the true horror of American consumer culture, racism,
“The state of kids publishing is such that it’s perfectly reasonable to be concerned about what agenda-driven and/or prurient content they’re peddling.” (Hemingway) This means it is very reasonable for everyone to be concerned about what the kids and young adults are reading. If parents are not concerned about what their child is reading, their child will follow many bad influences from books they have read.There are many influential books such as The Outsiders, by S.E Hinton that should be banned. The Outsiders is a novel about a house broken gang that encounters life changing problems. The Outsiders should be banned because it sets bad examples like underage drinking and drugs. This is an important theme for this book, and the book teaches bad morals.
Is it ever just to ban a book over the inclusion of controversial material? In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote has been an example of a book put under scrutiny for containing controversial content. Although the reasons for the opposition are clear to see in the novel, the complaints toward the book are not substantial enough to ban the book from schools. Capote includes some amounts gore and strong language in the novel, however nothing mature students are not able handle. The novel is based on a murder that occurred in 1959, and it has been speculated that Capote sympathizes with one of the two killers. However this has been highly misinterpreted as Capote is empathizing and not sympathizing. In Cold Blood is a classic piece of American literature that deserves to be apart of the
In the passage from The Great Influenza, John M. Barry uses rhetorical strategies like: antithetical ideas, extended metaphors, and diction to characterize scientific research.
Ozog suggests that the media we consume is correlated to "what we believe, fear, and love" (2), and the rise in demand for zombies is connected to our cultures fears and anxieties. To support this, I will discuss the characteristics we fear about zombies, starting with Platt 's idea that zombies represent "the anxieties associated with nuclear radiation and the possibility of an apocalyptic future." (552). In today 's society, we live in a world where we are constantly fearing the potential of a terrorist attack, another world war that will cause many deaths, or even the next big pandemic. Like Birch-Bayley states, zombies act as the standard for western culture 's "crisis mentality" (1137) to express these anxieties. This fear is also reflected in the plot of The Walking Dead when the survivors are fearing for their lives that they will become a zombie as well. They try to do anything they can to prevent the zombie outbreak from getting worse, even if it means killing their own family or friends. This is seen when Jim had to kill his own family because they turned into zombies and were attacking the survivors. His decision to kill those closest to him in order to save himself and the remaining survivors shows how we will do anything to stay alive, no matter how relentless or selfish these decisions can be. Thus, I conclude that the idea of a zombie reflects society 's biggest fears of violent attacks or major pandemic
In The Rattler the speaker’s rhetorical strategy is to use pathos to make the audience feel sympathy for his/her actions and to also use logos to give good reasons for his/her actions. The speaker is justified in killing the rattlesnake because he/she was protecting the lives of others while being courageous at the same time.
The zombies in the film seem to retain some memory of their human lives, as they are physically and inexorably attracted to the mall (Bishop 2010: 244). The zombies are drawn there by a subconscious memory; they somehow know they were once happy in such a place. This almost instinctual ‘‘drive to shop’’, as it were, is repeatedly emphasised by Romero, who shows the incompetent creatures pressed up against glass doors and windows, clamouring to get inside the shops and resume their earthly activities of consumption - their addiction for the place exists beyond death (Paffenroth 2006: 57). Dawn of the Dead emphasises the myth of mankind that presents commodities as the supreme goal of existence (Bishop 2010: 246). In a consumerist culture people cannot decide what to purchase, instead social standards decide what direction all have to follow. Individuals even in a state of zombification are looking for self-definition in the shopping mall. The commodity fetishism empowers the capitalist system and allows the individuals to live a utopian fantasy of autonomy (Bishop 2010: 247). People believe that they are free when they buy an object of their desire. However, in a sense they indirectly fall victims of exploitation, which is the purpose of the bourgeoise (Bishop 2010: 247). Just as zombies never satisfy their appetite for human flesh, consumers cannot restrain themselves from buying. People are unconscious of businesses that brain wash with propaganda to exploit consumers into buying merchandise (Bishop 2010: 248). Thus on a purely metonymical level, the zombies represent the existing horrors of a society brainwashed by the capitalistic need to
In her essay “Zombies as a Metaphor for Society” Sabrina Student attempts to discuss the history and evolution of zombie-based entertainment and the social implications of this pop culture icon. According to Student, zombies are an effective storytelling vehicle to discuss societal issues at key points in American history. Careful reading of Student’s paper reveals many faults in her documentation of information sources, and a troubling lack of competency in Modern Language Association (MLA) style. Student’s page formatting, in-text citations, and the Works Cited page all contain errors ranging from minor punctuation mistakes to serious breaches of information integrity.
Violent video games have been blamed for everything from bullying to school shootings. Critics of these video games believe they cause people to commit violent acts in real life. These critics, mainly comprised of parents and other responsible adults, don’t agree with what the video games portray. Others say the video games cause less violence and are an outlet for anger and stress. Although violent video games have violent actions in them, teenagers should be able to play violent video games because there isn’t enough evidence to prove they make teens more aggressive, it could prevent violence, and violent video games are a fun and relaxing way to relieve stress and anger.
c.) To me, this was difficult to read at some points. For example, in some parts it was extremely
Since 2013, 185 school shootings have occurred in the United States of America, according to the article "The Long, Shameful List of School Shootings in America." This averages to about one every week. School shootings have been a problem in the United States since 1853 which is when one of the first documented shootings with a student undertaking the shooting happened. Chris Glavin in his article “History of School Shootings in the United States” exclaims, “[On] November 2, 1853 [in] Louisville, Kentucky, a student, Matthew Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school and killed Schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before.”
The article “Do Video Games Kill” written by Karen Sternheimer responds to one of the most sought-after question; are video games the cause for “young killers”? (220) Sternheimer believes the influence of video games on today’s youth maybe spiraling out of control. She focuses most of the blame on the media, politicians and the Juvenile Justice System. Sternheimer suggests that there are other factors to blame for violent behavior: poverty, the neighborhood, unemployment, family violence, divorced parents and mental illness (218). While juvenile crimes have declined, and personal backgrounds effect actions, it cannot be proven that video game violence has no to little effect on America’s youth.
Violet video games have been blamed for several young people killing students at school. Young people are not able to think like adults so they are easy to follow the wrong way of doing things like they see in video games. Other countries do not have the same problems because their laws are strict or their customs for punishing wrong doing is much harder. Some of the violent video games young people like to play are : Grand theft auto, Call to duty, and Assassin. These games show a lot of blood and people getting killed. I believe that not letting children, Teenagers, and young adults play violent video games would improve the life of all in the United States.