The Wound in the Face

Question:
Carter writes, " Nevertheless, since the face has adopted naturalism as an ingeniousform of artifice, it was a mask,"
Do women wear make up to hide their insecurity or discontent with their appearance? To become someone 'different' and 'more exciting'?

Themes:
Lipstick
How makeup changes a woman's image
Obsession with appearence to please the opposite sex
Absurdity of some makeup throughout the years
(e.g.:black & blue lipstick)
Women's appearances through a transvestite's eye

Idea for research:
Find out why,how and when lipstick was invented. Has the use of lipstick changed over the years?
A survey could be carried out, asking men of all ages what changes lipstick makes in a woman and why they think women wear lipstick.

Idea for presentation:
Make a list of a few beauty products used in the 1800s. (e.g.: The royalty used to use bear grease to keep their hair in place) Maybe you could write a journal entry as a woman in the 1800s including all the products she used to beautify herself, and write another journal entry by one of her decendants, two centuries later, describing the products she uses.

ENG 101
Rasmi Sporny
10/8/2002

Just Walk on By: Black Men and Public Space

Question:
Brent Staples states that he was 'six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair' he also writes that he was 'suffering from a bout of insomnia'. Do you think that his appearance, grooming-wise, could have been a contributory factor for the woman getting scared and running away from him?

Themes:
Stereotypes of black men, causing trouble
Confusion
Prejudiced people
Growing up among gang warfare
Ignorance

Idea for Research:
Brent Staple's essay was written in the 1980s. Has stereotypes of black men has changed nowadays, or has the stereotype been passed to another type of ethnicity? Do an anonymous survey, asking people whom they'd be more afraid of if they were walking down the street alone. You could make a table with general appearance, race, etc.
E.g.: Man/Woman/Stevie-Wonder lookalike/Osama-lookalike/Jackie Chan lookalike etc.

Idea for Presentation:
You could create several short journal entries or a story about (or through the eyes of) a black man living in a nice neighborhood, but his neighbor is an ex-convict.

ENG 101
Rasmi Sporny
10/8/2002

The Morals of The Prince

Question:
"Men in general judge more by sense of sight than by sense of touch,"
Can you give a modern-day example, referring to this quote from the text, in order to clarify its meaning?

Themes:
Princes and how they manage their royal duties
Moral behavior
Manipulation and deceit
A Prince's virtue
Kindness and generosity towards the 'common folk'

Idea for research:
Do an analysis on Princes and other royal men, dating back to the 1500s. Find out what their characters were like and what made them successful or not.
See how many of them followed Machivelli's ideas.
You can start your search with history/royalty.com

Idea for presentation:
Create a short skit or narrative about a prince who can't decide how he should govern his land, whether he should be kind or tyrannical, fearless or timid, generous or greedy. To make it more comical, the prince could keep changing personalities according to the demands of his subjects.

ENG 101
Rasmi Sporny
10/8/2002

The Courage of Turtles

Steve Irwin -The Crocodile Hunter
No one could be more famous for hugging reptiles than this Discovery Channel mad-hatter. His love for nature's 'creepy-crawlies? is amusing yet amazing.
crocodilehunter.com

Surabhi Sharma, Film Director
Surabhi Sharma is an Indian film director, who made the film 'The Turtle People'. The film is about a fishing village and its people who spend their time trying to save turtles from extinction. These people, in Kolavipalayam, Kerala-India, are poor and manage to scrape by each day with the living they make by selling fish. The sand on the beach where the village is situated is dredged for sand, for building purposes.
The villagers work together to save the turtles' eggs, helping future generations of turtles to survive

Roger Louie
This person has a web page of three of his pet turtles. He has detailed pictures of each of his three-toed box turtles, plus information on how to look after them. Through his own knowledge and experience, he shows the world a little piece of his love for animals.
www.geocities.com/Heartland/Acres/9831

(If I could state non-human celebrities, I?d choose the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Kemit the Frog)

"Most of the painted turtles of Mud Pond, who had been inaccessible as they sunned on their rocks, wound up in boxes in boys' closets within a matter of days."

This makes me angry. The once 'happy' turtles will never be able to sun themselves again. Turtles need water. They can die if they are left alone and in the darkness of a box that is in a suffocating environment of a closet. Animals have to be appreciated, not tormented.

"...she breathes the way we breathe..."

I think the author is trying to say that animals are alive and have the same right to live as we do, because no matter how different our physical appearances may be, we are all more or less the same.

"They were aquatic turtles, but here they went without water, presumably for weeks, lurching about in those dry bins like handicapped citizens, living on gumption."

There is a note of sympathy in this sentence. The words 'lurching' and 'handicapped' create a clear picture of the plight of the captured turtles.

"Somehow there were so many of them I didn't rescue one."

He doesn?t use the word ?buy?, instead he uses the word ?rescue? because he knows that the turtles are in danger of dying. Why would an 'animal lover' not attempt to save an animal in danger? Even if he was young, couldn?t he have reported ?animal cruelty? in the shop where he saw the turtles?

"...they were creeping over one another gimpily..."

The word ?gimpily? is a funny word, but describes the turtles? movements well. I have never seen the word ?gimpily? before and I like it.

"...burdened as they are with that box on their backs..."

Turtles have so much weight holding them down when they are not in the water. Their very protection leads to their death. If not for their shells, no one would want them as pets, nor would they be killed.

"Its like a nightmare most of us have whimpered through, where we are weighted down disastrously while trying to flee..."

The author is saying is that turtles have to hide and run when on land in order to stay alive, but they have the weight of a shell holding them down.
A turtle become almost weightless when in the water.
In other words, people should leave turtles alone, let them live a dream, not a nightmare.

"I carried him, struggling in a paper bag, across town to the Morton Street Pier in Hudson?.I think he was afraid?.the waves were too rough for hi?.I recognized that I must have done the wrong thing."

Why did the author, an animal lover, throw the turtle to its death? Why didn?t he even attempt to save the animal? He could have found a net or something and tried to catch it further downstream. He had intended to do the right thing and free the turtle, but didn?t think about the river and how large and rough it was. I think he?s pointing out that when people are angry or frustrated with the behavior of their pets, they just get rid of them so that they don?t have to tolerate them anymore. People shouldn?t get pets if they are not devoted to keeping the pets alive, healthy and happy.

"But since, short of diving in after him, there was nothing I could do, I walked away."

If I did anything like that to an animal, I?d feel guilty for a long time. I remember when I killed a moth?s cocoon by accident, I felt guilty for weeks. I wonder if Hoagland felt any pangs of guilt. He knew what he did was not the right thing to do, but he doesn?t mention feeling guilty.