Who combats racism in To Kill a Mockingbird?

Atticus is one of the best examples of someone who combats racism in To Kill a Mockingbird.

In Lee's novel, Atticus is the moral compass that represents one of the strongest forces in combatting racism.  He repeatedly displays this in the novel. One example of this is in taking up Tom Robinson's case.  Atticus believes that all citizens should enjoy the right to a fair trial.  This political sentiment of equality mirrors his own belief...

Atticus is one of the best examples of someone who combats racism in To Kill a Mockingbird.

In Lee's novel, Atticus is the moral compass that represents one of the strongest forces in combatting racism.  He repeatedly displays this in the novel. One example of this is in taking up Tom Robinson's case.  Atticus believes that all citizens should enjoy the right to a fair trial.  This political sentiment of equality mirrors his own belief system.  He says this to Scout after she asks him about how other townspeople are calling him a "lover" of people of color:  "I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put, sometimes—baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you." When Atticus addresses issues of race, he speaks in a manner that transcends discrimination:

... the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.

Atticus combats racism because he seeks to transcend it.  In the lessons he teaches to Jem and Scout and in what he embodies in his own condition, he fights racism.  While others in the town succumb to it, Atticus actively combats racism and discrimination by emphasizing the humanity within all people. 

In Revolution in Poetic Language, does Kristeva equate poetic language with the semiotic chora? Are they one and the same? Or, if they are...

Poetic Language is not the same thing exactly as the semiotic chora. However, they do relate in that the semiotic chora helps create the possibility for poetic language. 

Julia Kristeva describes the semiotic chora as the possibility or potentiality of a thing happening. In our case, though, since she is writing about language, the semiotic chora is the potentiality for communication ("a modality of significance in which the linguistic sign is not yet articulated"). For...

Poetic Language is not the same thing exactly as the semiotic chora. However, they do relate in that the semiotic chora helps create the possibility for poetic language. 

Julia Kristeva describes the semiotic chora as the possibility or potentiality of a thing happening. In our case, though, since she is writing about language, the semiotic chora is the potentiality for communication ("a modality of significance in which the linguistic sign is not yet articulated"). For example, one can be driven to utter something, but it may not immediately mean anything to the person saying it or to the one listening. In that moment before it is understood, it is in the semiotic chora. For this definition she refers back to Plato's Timaeus, in which Socrates defined the word chora as space, or the place where things move and flow and where the potential is always held for things to be and act.

In this same way, the semiotic chora provides a framework for poetic language to exist or to become. However, poetic language requires an understood meaning to come out of the semiotic chora. The semiotic chora on its own is all space with no matter to fill it up. The symbolic is what fills up the semiotic chora. The symbolic is any mode of personal expression that must "depend on language as a sign system."

So, poetic language is the result of the semiotic chora being conveyed to us, and understood by us, through the symbolic.

What are the key details or points in the documentary Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death?

Peter Bate's 2003 documentary Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death is an indictment of Belgian King Leopold II's 19th to early-20th century colonization and rape of the vast Congo region of Central Africa. King Leopold II didn't invent European colonialism, but he was surely its most avaricious, brutal manifestation. 

Leopold, under the guise of benevolence, seized the resource-rich region of Central Africa with the stated intent of introducing to the indigenous tribes Christianity and...

Peter Bate's 2003 documentary Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death is an indictment of Belgian King Leopold II's 19th to early-20th century colonization and rape of the vast Congo region of Central Africa. King Leopold II didn't invent European colonialism, but he was surely its most avaricious, brutal manifestation. 

Leopold, under the guise of benevolence, seized the resource-rich region of Central Africa with the stated intent of introducing to the indigenous tribes Christianity and Western culture. Had that been the true sum of his contributions, it would have been bad enough. The reality behind the king's rhetoric, however, was far more malevolent than was understood for years after his death in 1909. As Bate's documentary points out, King Leopold II's reign over the Congo (later Zaire; later still, the Democratic Republic of Congo) was as brutal and bereft of humanitarian sentiment as that of European dictators who followed, particularly the reign of Adolf Hitler in Germany. Millions of innocent African citizens were murdered, starved, or left to die of disease while Leopold's colonial administrators systematically ravaged the nation's natural resources (those that were known of and desired at that time). First ivory and then rubber were harvested for the king's benefit, the former obviously coming at the expense of thousands of elephants. Furthermore, the king did not even colonize and exploit the Congo and the Congolese (the "black deaths" of the documentary's title) for the betterment of Belgium. Rather, he treated the Congo as his private possession: something to be exploited for his personal benefit.

Congo is not only about King Leopold II's brutal colonization of the Congo; it is also about that period of history's legacy. Early in his film, Bate's shows a contemporary citizen of the Democratic Republic of Congo being questioned about the king's one-time rule. The gentleman's reply: "He was a big boss, the Belgian who colonized us. . . . He colonized us. He taught us about civilization." And that is the point of Bate's documentary. King Leopold II was so successful at presenting himself as a benevolent ruler of a primitive, pagan territory that the extent of his crimes against humanity would remain largely unknown for many years, although readers of Joseph Conrad's classic novel Heart of Darkness were introduced to the devastation wrought by Belgium's colonization of the Congo and its treatment of the region's people. Conrad, of course, had operated a steam boat on the Congo River during the years of the king's reign, although as a British subject in the employ of British interests, he was not subject to the Belgian monarch's dictates. Conrad did, however, see for himself the effects of European imperialism on Africa and its people.

Bate's documentary covers all of this, including the role of Henry Morton Stanley in serving the king's interests along the Congo River. The film covers the ironic designation by the Belgians of the territory as the "Congo Free State," an Orwellian use of language that served Leopold's marketing interests while obscuring the depth of his depravity as a ruler. While Bate notes the ignorance among some contemporary Congolese regarding their nation's history, as the quote above illustrates, he does emphasize the extent to which the king's legacy has finally been tarnished in the Congo. Monuments to both King Leopold II and to Stanley have been toppled and serve as an ugly reminder of a heritage that permanently scarred this region.

Congo illuminates for viewers the steps King Leopold II took to conceal his avarice. Other European imperialists had neglected this huge region during their colonization of the continent. It was Leopold who recognized the region's potential and who took the steps necessary to fully exploit the Congo. The documentary painstakingly reconstructs the historical record that reveals the magnitude of the king's reach and of his greed. The point of Bate's film is to educate viewers on an otherwise neglected period of history. Most know of the crimes of Hitler; some know of the crimes of Stalin (although, unlike Hitler, many continue to ignore the scale of Stalin's crimes), and a few are aware of the Armenian genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks. Extremely few know the history of the Congo and of King Leopold II's role in its suffering--suffering that continues to this day. The mass murders and beheadings of African citizens by Leopold's colonial enforcers were commonplace. Such behavior today is attributed only to extreme Islamist organizations like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Back then, under Leopold's rule, it was business as usual for a "civilized" European monarch.

Jonathan Swift as a Satirist in Gulliver's Travels

Gulliver's Travels is a satirical work, and its main target is the experimental science promoted by Enlightenment thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton. 

The Enlightenment was marked by a particular theory of human nature, wherein human beings were seen as inherently rational creatures who were capable of attaining intellectual enlightenment; a certain optimism marks many writings from this time period. Swift, on the other hand, displays a pessimism about human nature and rationality that runs...

Gulliver's Travels is a satirical work, and its main target is the experimental science promoted by Enlightenment thinkers such as Sir Isaac Newton. 

The Enlightenment was marked by a particular theory of human nature, wherein human beings were seen as inherently rational creatures who were capable of attaining intellectual enlightenment; a certain optimism marks many writings from this time period. Swift, on the other hand, displays a pessimism about human nature and rationality that runs counter to the spirit of the Enlightenment. The strongest satire concerning human nature can be found in part IV ("Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms") where humans are like the irrational Yahoos.

His first adventure into Lilliput is a satire about the wars fought between England and France, with Blefescu standing for France and Lilliput for England. In general, the first two parts satirize European politics of the time, and George Orwell believed that Swift's attacks were targeted at the Whig Party. One can find an eviscerating criticism of England in this speech uttered by the King of Brobdingnag:

My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable 
panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved that 
ignorance, idleness vice may sometimes be the only 
ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best 
explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose 
interests and abilities lie in perverting them ... I am 
dwell disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many 
vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from 
your own relation ... I cannot but conclude the bulk of 
your natives to be the most pernicious race of little 
odious vermin that ever suffered to crawl upon the surface 
of the earth (II.vi).

The satire is first directed at England, at European politics in general and then, as the book progresses, it is directed at human nature itself.

What are the themes of The Other Wes Moore?

The themes of this book include the factors that help or hinder African American boys' upbringings. The author discusses the factors in his upbringing, including the role of his mother and grandparents and the schools he attended, in helping him prosper, while he examines the alternate path that the other Wes Moore took, towards teenage parenthood and eventual incarceration. 

Racismis certainly a theme in the book. The author looks at the ways in...

The themes of this book include the factors that help or hinder African American boys' upbringings. The author discusses the factors in his upbringing, including the role of his mother and grandparents and the schools he attended, in helping him prosper, while he examines the alternate path that the other Wes Moore took, towards teenage parenthood and eventual incarceration. 

Racism is certainly a theme in the book. The author looks at the ways in which the police patrol African American neighborhoods with a sense of antagonism and the effects of racism in his schooling at an elite private school, where he did not feel a sense of belonging but only alienation.

Another theme is absent fathers. The author's father died when the author was very young, and he was raised by his mother and grandparents. His uncle and grandfather were critical male role models for him that helped him in his sometimes difficult path to adulthood. The father of the other Wes Moore had little to do with his son, and Wes was largely raised by his older brother, Tony. The other Wes Moore became a father at a very young age, perhaps in part because he didn't realize what the role of a father was.

What are the themes of The Would-Be Gentleman?

A chief aim of Moliere's 1670 drama is to satirize or make fun of social pretensions. The plot pivots on the desire of the foolish bourgeois (middle-class) Monsieur Jourdain to rise in social status. In that period, the aristocracy reigned as the upper class in society, with royalty at its pinnacle. This class derived its wealth from inherited land passed down from generation to generation. During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, land was the chief basis of European wealth, with aristocrats collecting rents in return for allowing others use of parts of their often vast estates.

By the end of the seventeenth century, however, land-based wealth was being challenged by the rise of the mercantile middle class. While such "tradesmen" were scoffed at as beneath the dignity of aristocrats, they also generated anxiety with the wealth they were accumulating. American readers in particular need to keep in mind that a European could be "middle-class" but also very wealthy: the term denoted how one derived one's money rather than the level of one's wealth. 

Although middle class, the wealthy Jourdain tries to ape the mannerisms of the aristocracy with costly clothing, as well as through studying dance, fencing, music, and philosophy. He fails miserably and comically at these endeavors, showing that talent, grace, and intelligence can't be bought. The play thus ends up satirizing both the pretensions of the bourgeois "gentleman" (and, of course, the term is an oxymoron: a middle-class man can't be a gentleman) trying to be what he is not. It also satirizes the pretensions of aristocrats who similarly proclaimed superiority on the basis of dress and superficial accomplishments.

Social pretension ties to a second theme: appearance versus reality. All through the play, M. Jourdain has forbidden his daughter, Lucile, to marry her true love, Cléonte, because Cléonte is middle class. Instead, her father wants her to marry an aristocrat. At the end of the play, Cléonte disguises himself as the Sultan of Turkey and asks for Lucile's hand. The foolish M. Jourdain is now very enthusiastic about the marriage because he believes his daughter is marrying up. He lacks the discernment to see through the outer packaging to the true worth or identity of the person underneath. Once again, Moliere, himself middle class, emphasizes that it is internal merit that defines the worth of a person.

The play also asserts the theme of the right of a woman to choose her own mate. Lucile and her mother both assert this right strongly. When asked if it would be permissible for Lucile to forget Cléonte in favor of a better match, her mother says:

I would strangle her with my own hands if she did something like that. 

Lucile herself says:

No, my father, I told you, there is no power on earth that can make me take any husband other than Cléonte. And I will go to extreme measures rather than. . . . 

However, when she recognizes, as her father cannot, that the "Turk" is Cléonte, she quickly changes her tune:

It is true that you are my father; I owe you complete obedience; and it is for you to dispose of me according to your wishes.  

The notion of companionate marriage is tied to the rise of the middle class: Moliere supports this bourgeois freedom but shows as well how a wise woman will use whatever weapons are at hand to get her way.  

How does Roald Dahl present the theme of deception in "Lamb to the slaughter" ?

Deception is an important theme in "Lamb To the Slaughter." The transformation of Mary from a meek, submissive housewife to a devious killer is testament to this. Dahl plays with established gender roles in deceiving us on what to expect as the story unfolds. It is not just Mary's husband and the investigating police officers being played here.

Dahl uses symbolism to convey deception. The leg of lamb is a symbol of cozy, respectable domesticity, the perfect touch to a civilized meal. But, in Mary's hands, it turns into a brutal murder weapon:

Without any pause she swung the big frozen lamb high in the air and brought it down as hard as she could on the back of his head. She might just as well have hit him with a steel club.

We are rather surprised that someone as timid and unassuming as Mary should prove herself such a ruthless killer. We're even more surprised at how expertly she goes about covering up the evidence of her crime. It is astonishing just how well she manages to convince herself that someone else has murdered her husband:

she ran over to him, knelt down beside him, and began to cry her heart out. It wasn’t easy. No acting was necessary. A few minutes later she got up and went to the phone. She knew the number of the police station, and when the man on the other end answered, she cried to him, “Quick! Come quick! Patrick’s dead!” 

We fully expect her to go to pieces, running around like a headless chicken, not knowing what to do. But, not for the first time, she surprises us, and once again, we find ourselves thoroughly deceived.

When the police arrive, Mary acts out the role of traumatized hausfrau to perfection. The officers are every bit as taken in by Mary's mousy appearance as us. Mary's demeanor does not appear to have changed, but there has been a subtle shift in power relations. Now, it's the men, the male police officers, who are fussing over her, expressing sympathy, listening to her, even bringing her drinks. And to top it all off, they sit down to dinner and eat the murder weapon.

This is the ultimate act of deception. To the untrained eye, Mary is still the housewife she always was; but there's a crucial difference. Where before the role of submissive woman existed purely for the benefit of her husband, now she has appropriated it for herself to serve her own individual needs.