Take Off That Mask Essays - English-language Films, Boxing Films

Take Off That Mask Take Off That Mask As sad as it seem first impressions often dictate the way people feel about one another. In most cases the way a person looks doesn't at all reflect on their personality. This stigma of the way a person looks goes far beyond being pretty and ugly. All to often people are assumed mentally retarded because of a facial deformity when in fact that person is as able or in many cases more then able to perform and task they are asked to perform. Ironically in this modern society where such stigmas exist, some movies are able change our thinking if not remove the stigmas altogether. The film Mask is a perfect example. This movie shows the stigmas for what they are and at the same time changes our impression of facial deformity. This movie enables anyone who views it look at a person and see them for who they are and not what they look like. The film Mask we see the story of Rocky Denis, played by Eric Stoltz, is a teenage boy dealing with the effects of craniodiaphyseal dysplasia. Craniodiaphyseal Dysplasia also known as Lionitis, is a life shortening disease that causes calcium to accumulate in the skull. The calcium make the head grow to twice the normal size. Rocky obviously does not look like the average teenager. This is an observation we can see right away. Outside of the way Rocky looks his lifestyle is also slightly different from most teens. His mother Rusty, played by Cher, is affiliated with a gang of bikers. She drinks and uses drugs, and although she seems to try and hide these things from Rocky he is well aware of what his mother is doing. The movie is quick to bring some of the stigmas about Rocky's disorder to our attention. In two scenes we see how people outside of Rocky's immediate family treat his disorder. First we see how the principal of the local public junior high school views Rocky. He tells Rocky and Rusty that, ?There are special schools for children like Rocky,? the principal upon looking at Rocky immediately thinks he is mentally retarded. Rusty shows him this is far from the truth by giving the principal his grades from lower levels of schooling. She then threatens to sue the school if he does not enroll Rocky. Rocky shows the principal a thing or two when he goes on to graduate with awards for excellence in almost every academic subject. The principal also shows Rocky a little surprise when he offers him a job at a summer camp for blind children. The second scene is particularly disturbing because it takes place in a hospital. In this scene a doctor that is not familiar with Rocky's case tries to explain to Rocky and Rusty the unfortunate truth of his life expectancy. Rocky and Rusty deal with the situation by pretty much brushing off everything the young doctor says. The reason this scene is disturbing is because the doctor inadvertently makes himself no better then a common person misjudging Rocky. The one place you would think Rocky can be free from these stigmas seems to be worse then the outside world when a doctor gives off the emotions of a person seeing Rocky for the first time. The film again captures the view of Rocky's face and the first impression people have when Rocky goes to his first day of school. At the junior high school the students see him and make their impression and Rocky carries on as he always has. The students seem to overlook the fact that a biker from the gang dropped Rocky off at the school. In most junior high schools a student that is dropped off by a biker would get the full attention of bystanders. In this case all they notice is Rocky's facial deformity. As time passes the students like the principal accept Rocky for who he is. The acceptance of ?who he is? is a very important theme that constantly comes up in the movie. At one point Rocky gets in an argument with his mother in which he asks her ?Don't you get it, it's girls

Death of a Salesman Literary Analysis Essays

Death of a Salesman Literary Analysis Essays Death of a Salesman Literary Analysis Paper Death of a Salesman Literary Analysis Paper Essay Topic: Death Of a Salesman Trent Beebe Beebe 1 Mr. Arena 4th hour AP Lang Comp 12/17/09 Death of a Salesman Essay The story, Death of a Salesman, is a story that has many literary devices that help to make it the deep and riveting story that has become an American classic. The use of symbols in the story adds to the overall effect and theme and also creates a different mood that the reader must infer from it. The symbols not only represent something in the story as literally a symbol, but of much importance because of the numerous times they appear in the work. There are countless symbols in the story that help to give the reader a different feeling for it but there are a select few that really represent the most important themes and ideas from the book. The use of seeds in the story as a metaphor for Willy Loman’s life gives the reader a short and simple thought of Willy’s thought on life. Willy believed that if he worked hard and set a good example for his kids that he would in turn be successful and they would eventually be successful. His thought was the same as that for the seeds; you plant them, put some effort into trying to grow them, and they will grow to be big and strong. His boys would be like the plants in a way that they would grow to be big and strong and successful and provide for the family but that never ended up happening and Willy was disappointed about this. Willy was mainly disappointed because he felt like a failure as a father to Biff. Biff had everything going for him, All-American football player, ladies man, anything he wanted he could get. Willy thought the highest of Biff and eventually Biff never really made anything of himself and was basically a bum. All of what had happened to Biff reflected back onto Willy and Willy felt that it was his fault and felt he failed as a father. Another use of symbols is almost a minor one because of its little insignificance to the play, but its broad idea can be easily understood when fully examined. For all of Willy’s life, his son Biff, was the ultimate athlete. He was college bound to play football and had everything going for him. He was missing just one thing; His academics. He flunked math and was not able to graduate, meaning he could not play college football unless he passed. Biff’s friend and â€Å"study buddy†, Bernard, assured Biff that if he didn’t study he would flunk math and not graduate. Biff ignored this idea and instead went to practice to become a better football player. This event comes full circle when Biff eventually becomes a bum all due to the fact that he never passed math and Bernard is a big successful lawyer. A decade after this whole ordeal went down, Willy goes to visit his neighbor Charley, at his office. Willy is surprised to see Bernard there and has a quick chat with him about how he became so successful. Through this process, Willy noticed that Bernard had a tennis racket, and asked Bernard what he needed it for to go on this trip. Bernard eventually told him that it was to play tennis at one of his friend’s house in Washington D. C. Willy is surprised by this and feels happy for Bernard. The whole point to that part of the story was to use the tennis racket as a symbol showing the significance that hard work has on people. The old saying goes, â€Å"you work hard, you play hard†, and Bernard worked hard and is now getting to play hard and Biff never worked hard and now his life is dull, boring, and he has become a bum mooching off of his parents. A third symbol used in the story as a literary device was the thought of getting rich and making it to the top, and that meant going to Africa with Willy’s brother Ben to find diamonds, the main source of becoming rich. Years back, Willy’s brother Ben, asked Willy if he would want to travel to Alaska during the gold rush to try and hit it big. Willy refused because he wanted to make it big by way of the American Dream. Willy did not know it then, but he was making a huge mistake. Ben went the wrong way to Alaska and ended up in Africa, only to become very rich by hitting it big with diamonds that he found in a mine there. The diamonds he find make him rich and he one day comes back to Willy to tell him off his intangible wealth. Willy is quite surprised and ponders at the decision he made. The diamond and the thought of being rich were Willy’s ambitions in life and what he strived for to achieve for his family. Towards the end of the story, Willy thinks about his way to find the diamonds and realizes the only way he could get it would to be by killing himself and having his life insurancego to his family so they could finally have what Willy worked for all those years. Willy did follow through in his plan and he felt that killing himself was meaningful toward the betterment toward the family and he found his diamond that he had been searching for his whole life. The story, Death of a Salesman, used these and other symbols to add the theme of the book and allowed for the story to be a literature dream. The symbols not only represented broad topics of it, but also the significance of minor details that add to the story and make it that much better for the reader. Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.