A short commentary on Roland Barthes Mother Courage Blind Essay Example

A short commentary on Roland Barthes Mother Courage Blind Essay There are many men who altered time in creating a different world for everybody else. Some took it for worst, while others changed it for the better. Most of these men were all soldiers of a certain rank or leaders of nations, nonetheless of what they represented or what they done, they all have the same similarities. These men were all leaders. Bertold Brecht was a front-runner of literature, the originator of what we call epic theatre and he was an artistic leader with all of the qualities that was needed to originate this new theatre. Walter Benjamin describes Brechts epic theatre as â€Å"[1]appealing to an interesting group of people who do not think without reason† in his essay [2]â€Å"What is Epic Theatre† in his illuminations. I will use this as the stronghold to my essay on Roland Barthes Mother Courage Blind and how Bertold Brecht influenced him. Brecht sets Mother Courage Blind and Her Children during the thirty years war, a war that went on for thirty years without reason, in many cases without a reason for the people living during the war. A war that the poor and working class lost what they did not see while the higher classes won with their losses. We will write a custom essay sample on A short commentary on Roland Barthes Mother Courage Blind specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now We will write a custom essay sample on A short commentary on Roland Barthes Mother Courage Blind specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer We will write a custom essay sample on A short commentary on Roland Barthes Mother Courage Blind specifically for you FOR ONLY $16.38 $13.9/page Hire Writer Brecht writes this play during 1939, the time where Fascism and Nazism were on a rise and Nazi occupied Germany had just taken over their neighbors Poland. Brecht being a Marxist himself, I could imagine that he used the setting of this play as a left wing political act against the governments of the time. However one may argue that Brecht was himself a businessman, exploring the environment in his play by targeting the people who would be interested, but I very much doubt this was his intention. Brecht was a man of great culture, creativity and a sense of humor who influenced many of his time and still does now. What Brecht’s implies in this play is how great powers, in this sense the European powers use war as a profit venture. This is one of the main reasons which Mother Courage Blind attracted Roland Barthes. Barthes seemed to love the idea of Brecht displaying this act with his epic theatre and not preaching his thoughts through religion or politics as he states in his essay that Brecht â€Å"unites his crucial intention to a true theatre, so that the proposition’s evidence results not from sermon or argument but from the theatrical act itself† [3]. Barthes suggests that Mother Courage is suffering because she is blind to her own senseless acts, but this is what Bertold Brecht actually wants the audience to think as he later goes on to explain in the essay how â€Å"we are once mother courage and we are those who explain her;†[4]Barthes appreciates how Brecht’s intelligence in his theatre takes a hold of the audience and makes them lost in Mother Courage which then the audience is brought into her blindness without acknowledging the greatness of the theatre which has a enormous impact on the individual in the audience. Even though Brecht’s Mother Courage is an opportunist and a very inspiring character, it does not take much to see that she is simply a product of her environment and that the character is solely playing the part of a victim to make the audience feel for her struggles, which is what I believe Barthes meant by â€Å"we are all once Mother Courage[5]† by Brecht creating this character, it allows the audience to get in and get close with Mother Courage, feeling her emotions and what she is going through. As I have explained before, this play was written in 1939, which means most of the audience had already witnessed the First World War and the Second World War while Brecht was touring Europe. In a way Brecht seems to create this character so the audience could see themselves in Mother Courage and not make the same mistakes as her, because he only allows them to get close enough to judge her and nothing more. I trust if Walter Benjamin was alive to witness Mother Courage Blind and her Children in theatre, and if he were to write a critic’s essay about it, it would be the very similar to Roland Barthes version. The two men had a lot of similarities and I consider that if it was not for the tragic loss of Walter Benjamin, the two would have been very good friends. While reading Barthes Mother Courage I could sense a certain charismatic male. He explains what he see’s as the only way and does not take in account any other opinions and expects for the reader to understand him and only understand his opinion. Barthes seems obsessed with the â€Å"double vision: of the social evil and its remedies[6]† which is seen in Mother Courage Blind and her Children. The social evil the modern day is drugs, alcohol and violence. These are all things that are frowned upon and the remedies to life that change people. The social remedies in Mother Courage Blind are basically the characters blindness. All things could be made better if Mother Courage actually steps back and looks, but what Barthes does not consider while writing his essay is what he would have done if he were himself in Mother Courage’s shoes himself? Throw in the fact that all Mother Courage knows is war, where as the audience obviously knows that there is an end to the thirty years war, she sadly doesn’t. Brecht Mother Courage has a very important quote towards the end of the play â€Å" hope I can pull this wagon by myself. gotta manage. Not much in it, now. Gotta get back in business†[7] this is the scene just after Mother Courage leaves her late daughter to be buried by the peasants. This quote could show that people are in need of psychological and materialistic support as she looses her daughter but her only concern is getting her business back running again which is what I believe Barthes emphasizes on about his social evil. Although it could be argued that this is all she knows and this is all she’s know all her life. Although I see that Brecht is trying to show how the small people, also known as the working class does not have a say in what happens and all they’ve got to do is get on with what ever is thrown at them, Barthes argues this matter and suggest that if people saw their own stupidity, they will realize their mistakes and change for the better. Most of Barthes drama works after this had resemblance to what Bertold Brecht had created with his epic theatre. After the war, Barthes helped establish a magazine called â€Å"theatre populaire† I believe his main intention in this magazine was to assault the commercial drama of his days yet no one had really created theatre that will attack both social and political issues in the same play. But in 1954 Barthes came across Mother Courage Blind and Her Children while Brecht’s Berliner Ensemble was in France. This is where Barthes saw what he had longed to see from his university days after he had founded a theatre group which performed Greek plays. In Brecht he had found a theatre that brings together both Marxism and aesthetics in the same play. This was the start of a critic being unleashed into the world with the influence of a great leader in his own field.

Tropical Rainforests - Harbors of Diversity

Tropical Rainforests - Harbors of Diversity Biodiversity is a term biologists and ecologists use to describe natural biotic variety. The numbers of animal and plant species plus the richness of gene pools and living ecosystems all make for sustained, healthy, and diverse ecosystems. Plants, mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, invertebrates, bacteria, and fungi all live together with non-living elements like soil, water, and air to make a functioning ecosystem. A healthy tropical rainforest is the worlds most spectacular example of a living, functioning ecosystem and the ultimate example of biodiversity. Just How Diverse are Tropical Rainforests? Rainforests have been around a long time, even on a geological scale. Some existing rainforests have evolved over 65 million years. This time-enhanced stability has in the past allowed these forests greater opportunities for biological perfection. Future tropical rainforest stability is now not so certain as human populations have exploded, rainforest products are in demand, and countries struggle to balance the environmental issues with the needs of citizens living off these products. Rainforests by their very nature harbor the greatest biological gene pool in the world. The gene is a basic building block of living things and every species is evolved by various combinations of these blocks. The tropical rainforest has nurtured this pool for millions of years to become the exclusive home for 170,000 of the worlds 250,000 known plant species. What Is Tropical Rainforest Biodiversity? Tropical rainforests support higher land area units (acres or hectares) of biodiversity when compared to temperate or arid forest ecosystems. There are some educated guesses by experts that tropical rainforests on our planet contain about 50% of the world’s terrestrial plant and animal species. The most common estimate of the size of total rainforests amount to approximately 6% of the world’s land area.   While tropical rainforests around the world have many similarities in their climates and soil composition, each regional rainforest is unique. You will not find precisely the same species living in all the tropical rainforests around the world. For example, the species in African tropical rainforests are not the same as the species living in the tropical rainforests of Central America. However, the different species play similar roles within their specific regional rainforest. Biodiversity can be measured on three levels. The National Wildlife Federation lists these levers as:1) Species diversity - being  the sheer variety of living things, from microscopic bacteria and fungi to towering redwoods and enormous blue whales.  2)  Ecosystem diversity  - being tropical rainforests, deserts, swamps, tundra, and everything in between.  3)  Genetic diversity  - being the variety of genes within a single species, which give rise to the variations that cause species to evolve and adapt over time. Two Fantastic Rainforest/Temperate Forest Comparisons To comprehend just how marvelous this biodiversity is, you have to make a comparison or two: One study in a Brazilian rainforest found 487 tree species growing on a single hectare (2.5 acres), while the US and Canada combined only have 700 species on millions of acres.There are approximately 320 butterfly species in all of Europe. Just one park in a Peruvian rainforest, The Manu National Park, has 1300 species. Top Biodiverse Rainforest Countries: According to Rhett Butler at Mongabay.com, the following ten countries are home to the most biodiverse tropical rainforests on Earth. The United States is included only because of Hawaiis protected forests. The countries in order of diversity are: BrazilColombiaIndonesiaChinaMexicoSouth AfricaVenezuelaEcuadorPeruUnited States

Film Report Movie Review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words - 1

Film Report - Movie Review Example Its theme revolves around an unconventional form of love, in which the other person involved does not see his mysterious admirer. At first, the audience cannot see romance as a theme in the movie because the film opened with the unveiling of a monument only to find out that the Tramp is relaxingly cradled in its arms, plus his pants got hooked by the monument’s sword when he was asked to leave. The audience can see the theme when Tramp saw the blind woman selling flowers in a corner. It was conceived that he liked the woman the first time he met her. In emphasizing the theme, the film used Tramp’s gaze and fondness for the blind woman that obviously tell the audience he likes her at the first encounter. 2) What were the choices made by the main characters and what were the consequences of those choices? First, Tramp’s helping of a drunk millionaire when he was about to commit suicide in a river resulted to a newly-formed friendship. Because of that, Tramp was abl e to see the millionaire’s house and was offered a drink, aside from the friendship. Moreover, the Tramp was also able to find out the condition of the blind woman he met on the street when he decided to find her. As a result of the growing affection he has for the woman, the Tramp decided to help finance her costly eye operation, and even pay for their rent. The Tramp decided to be a street cleaner and a boxer. He was not successful, though, in winning the fight. Accidentally, he met with his millionaire friend in a street. His friend, likewise, decided to help his friend, and gave him the money he needed. Despite the odds (thieves sent his millionaire friend to sleep while they were talking in the living room), the Tramp was able to give the money to the blind woman, and she had her operation successfully. In the end, the cured woman acknowledged the Tramp when they met for the first time after he was imprisoned. The woman accepted the Tramp when she first saw him, and the Tramp’s love was also requited. 3) What three or four sequences are most important in the film? Why? First, it was during the time when the Tramp met the blind woman in the street, and immediately falls in love with her. It gave him someone to look forward to. Second, when he tried to stop the drunk millionaire from committing suicide. That started their friendship, even though the millionaire is hostile when he is not drunk. Their friendship paved way for his access to various parties, and even driving the millionaire’s car. Third, the Tramp’s surprise visit to the blind woman’s house made him know her condition and the need for a costly eye operation. It was because of knowing her situation that made him determined to help her. His friendship with the millionaire also helped the blind woman to be cured through his money given to him. Because of their acquaintance also, he was imprisoned and spent his life in jail for stealing the millionaire’s mo ney (apparently, the millionaire did not remember anything after the thieves hit him on the head). The final sequence was when the Tramp and the cured woman finally met, and their love was proven in the end. 4) Did the ?lm surprise you with anything unusual in its story, style, technique, or implications? The film

What are the limits of international cooperation Essay

What are the limits of international cooperation - Essay Example Naturally, this is a naive approach to world relations and one that cannot be reasonably expected to exist at any level as the parties that are integrating with one another are ultimately self interested and seek to maximize their own good at each and every juncture (Chandy & Kharas, 2011). Ultimately, as this analysis will argue, there are distinct limits of expectation that should be established with respect to the way in which international cooperation will be exhibited. As a means of providing relevant situational examples for this, several of the key exhibitions of the limitations and constraints to international cooperation will be elaborated upon and referenced within this brief analysis. In this way, it is the hope of this author that after integrating with a further understanding of what constitutes the bounds of international cooperation, the reader might come to a more informed understanding of how international cooperation is exhibited within the current model and how one might expect it to be exhibited within the near future in any number f different inter-state interactions that may take place. Looking back into the not so distant past, it is the understanding of this author that two distinct indicators of international cooperation can be found to exist. These are the needs and expectations/demand for sovereignty as well as the continual and a surge of need for the propagation of self interest. With regards to the latter, this is one of the terms and understandings that most closely define international relations on any particular level. Likewise, with regards to the former, this is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of state behavior as it lies at the core of almost each and every action that is state engages in (Zaum, 2010). Nonetheless, even though these two concepts are heavily leveraged with respect to international relations, they are none the less salient to a more complete understanding of international cooperation. For instance, if one t akes the case of the Marshall plan, instituted by the United States at the close of World War II as a means of rebuilding a war-ravaged Europe, the self interests of this particular program was with regards to developing a resilient and robust series of economies within Western Europe that could stand up to the growing threat that the Soviet Union posed in the East (Hogan, 1989). Likewise, the cooperation that was noted between these nations and the United States was with respect to the fact that this program did not infringe upon self-interest or sovereignty to a large enough degree for the recipient nations to refuse such aid (Tinsley, 2007). In such a way, both determinants of the rubric lain out above have been met and thus international cooperation is something that can be expected to have taken place in this particular situation. Likewise, as history has proven, this is indeed the result and can be attested to in a variety of other somewhat similar situations. Similar situatio ns to the one described above are not only relegated to history, rather the determinant of sovereignty and self interest of both parties continues to define the exhibition of international

Cakes Health Effects on Humans Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Cakes Health Effects on Humans - Essay Example Sugar is a substance easy to abuse but when one is aware of the health effects, the decision requires a re-thinking. Seslar (p.67) discovered that sugar presents a very tempting likelihood of abuse and it often leads to addiction. Sadly, as the abuse keeps taking place so does health deterioration. Consequently, in the end, the person has too much sugar in the body hence leading to some health concerns. Apart from rendering one’s teeth less useful, cakes tend to have other preservatives that have been found to be a health risk to many. Howard and Wylie-Rosett (p.24) noted that due to lack of monitoring, many cakes are made with little regard for health thus posing a real health risk. Unfortunately, not many people take time to investigate some of the purported ingredients. Even though many cakes are portrayed as ones reach with all the necessities the body requires, the opposite is the truth in many cases. Sugar is a necessity to the body but moderation has to be practiced or else memory capability will decline significantly. It was noted that too much consumption of foods with excessive sugar could lead to decreased memory (Avena, Pedro and Bartley p.24). Normally, this occurs because many, if not all, of the cakes consumed, are cooked containing significant amounts of sugar. Worse still, the consumers of these cakes take them in large quantities thus increasing the amount in the body. Whereas this paper is not necessarily demonizing cakes, it is the manufacturers’ tendency to focus on money that makes the situation worse. On the other hand, the consumers escalate the situation by consuming without control. Even though health concerns have been raised about the cakes, it is imperative to state that wheat, an ingredient of cakes, plays an essential role in humans’ health.

The Creole language

The Creole language The Creole language that will be considered during this essay will be Mauritian Creole. Mauritius is found of the African continent, in the south west of the Indian ocean. This island was visited by the Portuguese in the early 16th Century, and by the Dutch in the 17th Century. They were the ones whom first permanently settled there, however due to certain conditions on the island, such as the weather conditions which they could not adapt to, caused them to leave some years later. At this time, the French were ruling the island near Mauritius, which is called la Reunion, and therefore saw this as an advantage and took control of Mauritius in the 18th Century, and as a result it was under the French rule. The French started importing slaves from different areas, such as East and West Africa, India and Madagascar and grew in numbers quite rapidly. They settled on the island using a Creole as a means of communication. Due to the increase in the numbers of slaves, the European population diminished, which caused the Creole language to expand. Some time later during the Napoleon war Britain took over, which meant that English became the language of the government and also education. However, French was still the language used in other domains, but Creole was used the most. At the moment the population of Mauritius is around 1.2 million, whom all speak the Creole language, even though it has been known that English is the official language. In A.Richards book, he states that English is not the preferred language regardless of the fact that it has a colonial past on the island and that â€Å"beyond school and work it is rarely used.†He adds that, â€Å"the official language of Mauritius is English, although most Mauritians are more comfortable speaking French. The language of the people, however, is Creole.†(A.Richards, R.Ellis, D.Shuurman P21) Although Creole is spoken by the majority of its inhabitants, â€Å"people who want to climb the social ladder† are now choosing French or English. â€Å"This fact proves again the sociological content of pidgins and creoles. In most areas they are spoken by the lower classes and abandoned as soon as a person aspires to a higher position in society.†(M.K Adler P54) In actual fact, the pidgins of Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean areas all have â€Å"connections with each other through European colonisation and the slavery system.†(M.Sebba P169) Firstly the term ‘Creole will be taken into consideration, in order to get a better understanding of what will be explained. â€Å"This term has been appropriated by linguists to describe a particular group of languages spoken not only by Black populations in and around the Caribbean, but in many other locations world-wide.†(H.Nwenmely P15) When people from different origins came together, the only way they could communicate would be with simple vocabulary and grammar. Therefore, pidgin as a language was used, until it was expanding and therefore resulting in Creole which, â€Å"results fulfils all the communication needs of its speakers but, while the vocabulary is drawn from the dominant language, the structures which it uses are often very different, and, in many cases, derive from the subordinate languages.†(H.Nwenmely P16) Let us examine the connection between Creole and pidgin language. It can be said that there exists a strong link between Creole and pidgin because if the original language that is spoken by the native speakers is a pidgin, it has been nativised. In other words, it has become a creole language. â€Å"The idea that creole languages are nativised pidgins emerged during the late sixties and developed in the seventies.†(C.Lefebvre P14) Usually, a Creole becomes more complex and refined than a pidgin, which then results in â€Å"its vocabulary expands, its grammar stabilises and its pronunciation becomes more fixed†. (M.K Adler P14) According to C.Lefebvre, â€Å"Creoles can emerge rapidly, in this case in one generation†(P15) Pidgins are known to be more of a second language, in other words a language which is learnt throughout generations, whilst Creole is developed by children as a native language. Therefore, pidgins are â€Å"contact languages without native speak ers,†whilst Creoles are â€Å"contact languages with native speakers.†(M.Sebba P169) Nevertheless we need to remember that even though pidgins and creoles are different, they both ‘share structural features such as grammatical simplicity and small vocabularies when compared with their lexifiers. (M.Sebba P168) In general, Mauritian Creole is an easy language to be learnt as â€Å"there are no grammatical rules†andâ€Å"English, French and Indian words can be adapted by â€Å"Creolising† them.†(A.Richards, R.Ellis, D.Shuurman P21) Therefore, the speaker can utilise the language to communicate in a non-structured way, whereby the style of speaking, vocabulary, syntax, phonology or grammatical structures can be as good and as acceptable as any other language, as it is also â€Å"not formalized and as such does not have a dictionary.† (http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Mauritian:Creole.htm) One main linguistic feature which can be examined in the Mauritian Creole, is the lexifier. â€Å" Where a single language is identified as the source of the majority of the lexicon of a pidgin or creole, it is known as the lexifier†¦the lexifier often equates with the European colonisers language where there is one.†(M.Sebba P25) This language contains many words from the French language, but according to Sebba, she states that â€Å"Baker (1972) notes that more than 150 words are derived from English, more than 50 from Indian languages and several from Malagasy and Chinese.†(M.Sebba P144). It is possible to say that many words clearly origin from the French words but in the Creole lexicon, for example the French ‘le, la, l is usually connected with the noun it affects. Moreover in French, articles are frequently joined with the preposition ‘de. However, in Mauritian Creole, the sound which is produced can undoubtedly be reflected into a single word. E xamples of this could be ‘le pied in French, which in English means foot, becomes ‘lipye in Mauritian Creole. Furthermore, de leau meaning water in English, becomes ‘dilo in Mauritian Creole. As we can see, the articles which exist in the French language, ‘le and ‘la becomes part of the actual word itself. Nevertheless, some words that exist have completely changed their meanings. One example would be â€Å"gayh†, which means â€Å"to have something† in Mauritian, which originally comes from the French word â€Å"gagner†, meaning â€Å"to win something.† Phonology is another aspect which can be examined. This term can be described as the study of sounds, and in this case, the study of the sound system of Mauritian Creole. Phonology can be linked with the organs of speech (palates, alveolar ridge) and how it is used, and also it can mean the features of sound, for example accents and intonation. The sound system for Mauritian Creole is very similar to French, however it still has some obvious differences. This can be said as â€Å"the Creole does not have some of the more deeper and rounded consonants that the French does. For example, manger (eat) in Creole is written manzer and is spoken the same as the French, with the exception that the more rounded g sound in the French is flattened to sound like the s in the English word vision.†(http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Mauritian:Creole.htm) Another aspect which can be recognised is the rounded vowels which exist, such as â€Å"U† and â€Å"EU† that are pronounced as â€Å"I†, â€Å"U†, â€Å"E† and â€Å"O†, which in French are usually pronounced as â€Å"U† and â€Å"EU†. Another striking example would be â€Å"among the many phonological regularities in the derivation of Mauritian Creole words from French is the following tidy principle: French nasal vowels remain nasal†¦but when the French is followed by a word final voiced plosive (d, b, or g) the final plosive is dropped, the MC vowel is denasalised†and â€Å"m,n and ng becomes a sharply pronounced consonant.†(Seuren P100-101) The Mauritian orthography also generally follows French, but some silent letters are not taken into account, which cuts the number of ways in which the same word can be spelt. The vocabulary, in other words, the words or phrases used in Mauritian Creole is interesting to examine. M.Vaughan investigates the languages slave roots. According to her, the linguist and folklorist Charles Baissac reports how Creole uses â€Å"guetter† (to look for) instead of â€Å"regarder† (look). Similarly, â€Å"roder† (to prowl) means â€Å"chercher† (to search in French). Nouns are also important in Mauritian Creole as they do not change when they are pluralised. As a consequence, whether a noun is singular or plural can only be verified by the context. For example, the word â€Å"ban† is put before the noun in order to change the sentence to the plural form, â€Å"ban dimoune† meaning those people, whilst â€Å"dimoune† on its own would mean people. Even though the French â€Å"un/une† is equivalent to the Mauritian â€Å"en†, the way in which it can be used is different. In Creole the article â€Å"la† is used, however it is placed after the noun it changes. In French you would say, â€Å"un chat†, â€Å"le chat†, â€Å"les chats†, whilst in Mauritian you would say â€Å"en chat†, â€Å"chats-la†, ban-chats.† Whether or not the pronoun is the subject, object, possessive, male or female, there is only one word which is used to describe these. This word is â€Å"li†, which can be used to describe he, she, him, her, it or hers. There are also words which are used in sentences to indicate the tenses. For past tense, the word â€Å"ti† is used before the action, â€Å"fin† is used to mark the perfect tense, and â€Å"va† for future. The syntax of Mauritian Creole, especially the use of their question words is also interesting to note, which DeGraff explains in his book. The way in which Creole contrasts with both the English and French language is that it does not have a â€Å"subject-auxiliary inversion in connection with wh-movement.†(DeGraff P78) For example, if we directly translate the phrase â€Å"ki u ule fer dinmen?†, it would be â€Å"what you want make tomorrow?†, and in idiomatic English, â€Å"what do you want to do tomorrow?†(P78) Another example would be, â€Å"kan nu ti fer fet la?†, directly meaning â€Å"when we TNS make party DET?†and in idiomatic English, â€Å"when did we have the party?†(P78) DeGraff continues to comment that â€Å"most question words are created in Mauritian Creole by prefixing ‘ki to nouns of time, place, way and so on, which are drawn from the French lexicon.†(DeGraff P78) He then follows on by explaining †Å"such a bio morphemic way of forming wh-words appears to be typical for Creole languages.†(DeGraff P78) On the other hand, while it seems that some structural elements of Mauritian Creole are typical of creoles in general, it is important to note that Mauritian Creole is not entirely typical of Creole languages. We can take H.Wekkers opinion on this when he comments that typically â€Å"creolization is best described as a gradual process of language formation, involving a period of bilingualism in which substrate features will be transmitted.†(Wekker,H P140) He also discusses about â€Å"abrupt creolization†as a way for development when there is â€Å"extremely limited access†to the main language, but that this manner of development of a Creole language is â€Å"the exception rather than the rule.†(P141) However, we can consider that according to some theorists, Mauritian Creole is a perfect example of this kind of abrupt creolisation, whereby the language is a â€Å"radical creole.† (DeGraff P77). As a matter of fact in Sebbas book, she discusses how in 1773, it was stated in a newspaper advertisement how a lost slave did not understand the Creole language. This therefore indicates that twenty two years after the slaves were first imported to Mauritius, â€Å"an identifiable local language had developed,†(Sebba P142) which caused the slaves difficulty in comprehending. Without a doubt, this means that it can be said that this language is not essentially typical of the Creole languages in general as Mauritian Creole seemed to have developed very quickly and not necessarily derived from a pidgin language. Baker and Corne also suggest this in their book, as they believe that Mauritian Creole originated on the island of Mauritius between the years of 1727 and 1738, without ever having any connections with the pidgin languages. Moreover, they suggest that it was the slave children who created the Mauritian Creole, as when they were born in Mauritius, they outnumbered the white settlers. On the other hand of this suggestion, R ichard says â€Å"it evolved from the pidgin used by the French masters of the 18th Century to communicate with their slaves or their masters who invented the Creole language.†(A.Richards, R.Ellis, D.Shuurman P21) Therefore there is an argument which concerns to whether or not it was the slaves or their masters whom created and developed the Mauritian Creole. The fact that Mauritian Creole lacks the pidgin language, it makes it unusual and according to Wekker, it is therefore quite an â€Å"exceptional† language. (Wekker P141)

munchausen :: essays research papers

The Analysis of Baron Munchausen   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In the book Signs of Life, the author Linda Seger writes about heroes, and their typical characteristics, that for the most part have always been the same throughout history. Even the word hero is already put in the male tense, suggesting there that most heroes have been and will be males. For the most part Seger’s points are well taken and are backed up mostly by every heroic story I’ve ever read or seen before in my life. The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen definitely pushes the typical hero envelope, but even still, Seger’s idea of typical hero characteristics shown through in most of this crazy Monty Python type film. Seger explains from the beginning of her article that the hero usually, â€Å"begins as a nonhero; innocent, young, simple or humble† (Signs of Life; 318). This observation one finds to be false when it comes to the Baron. She goes on to write in her second point that something happens to heroes â€Å"that sets the story in motion† (Signs of Life; 319). Well how can this point be proven wrong if something didn’t get the hero started he would then cease to be hero wouldn’t they. In her third point Seger reports that the hero doesn’t really want to leave where they are, even when they’ve already been asked once. She states that the hero usually, â€Å"receives a double call to adventure† (Signs of Life; 319). Asking the hero once for the sake of 2 others isn’t enough, it’s only when it becomes personal the hero takes action. In most journeys the hero â€Å"usually receives help† (Signs of Life; 319) and typically gets it mostly from â€Å"unusual sources† (Signs of Life; 319). You’ll find that most everything the entire movie of Baron Munchausen is unusual and that the hero himself is just as unusual as the person or moon he is talking to. The final point that I have chosen to analyze from Seger’s writing in Signs of Life, comes from her fifth point. She explains that once the hero is ready to begin the hero â€Å"moves into a special world where he or she will change from the ordinary to the extraordinary† (Signs of Life; 319). This is usually the first plot point that sets the story in motion or in our case the Baron on his way.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The idea from Seger that the hero â€Å"usually begins as a nonhero† (Signs of Life; 318) doesn’t hold true to this story at all.