How to write about Spanish people

How to write about Spanish people.

Always talk about their laziness and lack of professionalism. If possible include that they are always late at work, in the case that they get a job. Do not forget about the fact that all they eat is tortilla, paella, and jamon Serrano(Serrano ham), and about the fact that the only sport that they like is football. It is of vital importance, to mention that Spain is one of the countries that works less during the day, taking several rests during the workday, putting so much emphasis on the Spanish “siesta”, which is the rest taken in all the country between the 14:00 hours to the 17:00 hours to eat and take a nap. Besides of that, an important part to mention that could not be forgotten, is to include that three out of four words that they say are insults, being the language in which insults are used the most.  

In what concerns tradition, all the Spanish people are guilty of killing bulls without mercy, without exception, even if they have never been to a bullfight, you should include them as guilty individuals that are in favor of killing bulls, as a way of entertainment. Mentioning how corrupted the Spanish government is, is also a good point that might show an important characteristic of the country.

In the case that you want to write about the general attitude of the Spanish people, do not forget to include their passive interest towards culture, only caring about football, and relaxing, and do not forget about their lack of manners, that makes them easily recognizable when they travel to foreign countries.

Besides of that, when talking about how each Spanish person acts with another, always include that they have to know everything that happens in their lives, and in the case that something is going good in the life of one, the other will always be jealous, and undervalue his achievements, instead of being happy of the achievements of the other. Never forget to include how bad the Spanish people drive. Make sure that you include that every Spanish driver has obtained his driving license in a raffle.

Lastly, always include that there is no Spanish individual that is able to talk in a different language than Spanish properly, either because of poor pronunciation or lack of grammar that makes their skills to communicate in a different language pretty embarrassing.

Paper 2 Analysis

Paper 2 Analysis

2.- Show how and to what effect Achebe makes use of myth, legend or other stories tales.

First off, Things Fall Apart is a novel in which Chinua Achebe shows how much the Igbo people from Nigeria value their religion, and customs. In order to do this, Achebe portrays the life of a Nigerian individual called Okonkowo who lives in a tribe called Umoufia, and who is part of the Igbo culture. Throughout the novel Achebe shows that the religion, along with the social status, is the most important thing in the Igbo society. In order to show this, Achebe portrays many traditions and customs that the Igbo people practice, through Okonkowo’s story.

It is noticeable during the story, that Achebe wants to emphasize on the idea that the orality of the Igbo culture plays a major role in what concerns transmitting the customs, religion, and believes of the culture. In the period of time in which the story Things Fall Apart is developed the Igbo culture did not have any knowledge of writing or reading, therefore all the Igbo knowledge, customs, religion, and believes were passed to the next generations through the use of orality. The three ways in which the Igbo culture was passed from parents to children were spiritual songs, folktales, and poems. Since the orality is such an important part of the culture, Achebe includes examples of spiritual songs, folktales, and poems in the novel, portraying the impact that they have in the life of the different characters, to show its importance.

First of all, the traditional songs of the Igbo people were present always in their daily life. The songs are mainly based on a main voice singing, accompanied with a chorus that sometimes interacted in the song repeating a phrase that the main voice sang. The main instrument type used by the Igbo people were the percussion instruments. The Igbo people believed that the spiritual songs made a difference in their lives, therefore having the power to change a situation. One of the songs that Chinua Achebe includes in the novel, is the song that Ikemefuna, the child that the tribe had left to the main character of the play Okokowo, sings when walking towards his execution without knowing about it. Since Ikemefuna thought that he was going back to his original tribe, he was concerned of not having known anything about the health status of his mother in the period of time in which Okonkowo took care of him, therefore in order to decide whether or not his mother was alive, or dead, Ikemefuna decided that depending on the foot on which the song that he would sing ended, his mother would be dead or alive. This is a situation in which Achebe portrays the idead that the Igbo people believed that these songs had an impact in their lives.   

Second of all, Achebe also shows that the folktales have an important role in the orality of the Igbo culture. As Achebe shows in the novel, folktales are popular stories of the Igbo culture that are transmitted from generations to generations to transmit certain values that should be applied in life. Achebe includes an example of folktale of the Igbo culture, when he shows how one of Okonkowo’s wife, Ekwefi, tells a story to her daughter Ezinma. In the story that Ekwefi tells Ezinma, a tortoise is invited to a feast in which only birds are invited. The tortoise seizing the opportunity, deceives all the birds, and ends up eating all the food of the feast. Eventually, this display of greed turns against the tortoise, producing his shell breaking in pieces when landing on earth. This story was transmitted to Ezinma to understand that taking greed decisions to benefit only herself could possibly end up in a tragedy for her, therefore the value is transmitted to Ezinma through the folktale.

Finally, Achebe includes poems, or Igbo proverbs in the story, that show how the Igbo people decide to take decisions on their lives depending on what these proverbs say. An example of proverb used by Achebe in the story is “When a man says yes, his chi also says yes.” This proverb shows the Igbo believe that the personal God of each individual, the chi, will most of the time coincide with the decision of the individual itself. This proverbs transmitted from generation to generation in the Igbo culture show how the experience and believes of the Igbo ancestors are passed to the new generations through proverbs, that might help this generations in the future, when taking an important decision.

All in all Achebe’s use of folktales, proverbs, and songs, shows how important was the orality for the Igbo culture to transmit their believes, religions, and customs to the new generations.

Memoir as the character Obierika

I still remember how things were before the missionaries came. Everybody was committed to the religion of our father, and nobody would question the reality of our beliefs. As I said to Okonkowo when I visited him at Mbanta, we first spoke about this albino that for first time appeared in Abame, but I did not pass to much time until Okonkowo got shocked. Okonkowo told me that the people that killed the albino were fools, and that that is what caused the extermination of the whole clan. All I knew was that nothing related to those albinos was going to make any good to our tribe.

After these missionaries came here, I knew that the harmony in our tribe was already broken. Some of us first were curious about the origin of these missionaries, and about what they wanted to do here, and this albinos were really clever so that they knew how to manage this curiosity in their favor. Their leader, never behaved violently, and on the other hand, always showed a kind and peaceful attitude, using it as a way to attract our brothers to his faith. Lastly, he was able to influence our brothers and sisters, and make them convert to his religion, completely falling us apart. Now that there is ideological separation in our own homes, there is nothing that we can do to restore the peace, and the unity in our tribe. Many of our brothers, sons, and wives have turned against us, preferring to listen and serve, a religion that is not our parent’s religion. 

Paper 2 Analysis

Prompt 3 – Discuss the significance of social status in Things Fall Apart, and comment on its contribution to characterization.

First of all, Things Fall Apart is a novel in which Chinua Achebe addresses the people that have a misconception of Africa, and the Africans to transmit the idea that the people from Africa are individuals with values, customs, and spiritual believes instead of animals that behave like savages, as the European authors described the Africans when the first missionary journeys were carried out by missionaries from England. Throughout the text Chinua Achebe portrays the life of an African individual, originally from Nigeria, called Okonkowo who experiences how the ideology of the missionaries being different to the ideology that his tribe has break the harmony in his tribe and separating  it.

In the novel, Chinua Achebe describes the importance of religion, and social status, in the Igbo culture, which is Okonkowo’s culture. Chinua Achebe explains in the novel through the use of Okonkowo, that the social status is one of the most important things in the Igbo culture. Achebe shows that social status is not determined by family, or name, but by individual achievements. To portray this, Achebe shows that Unoka, Okonkowo’s father, was a lazy man without any titles, and a man with many debts that never had success in cultivating yam seeds, only having an unproductive land. On the other hand, Okonkowo was a very hard working individual since a pretty early age, who had been a successful worker of the land that ended up possessing many yam crops obtaining a complete different status than his father’s. Besides of that, Okonkowo becomes known in all the tribes for becoming the best wrestler of Umoufia after defeating the cat. To achieve all of this success, Okonkowo uses his father as a bad example of individual, to push himself to the success.

In the Igbo culture, all the individuals that died without any achievements, or titles, were not buried, but carried to a forest called the forest of the evil, were they were left there. As Okonkowo did not want to face the same fate as his father, he develops a harsh and rude attitude that allows him to work hard, and obtain titles. Even though his rude and harsh attitude helps him to achieve a high social status, it also contributes to problems that he has to face that end up turning his bad fortune to a bad fortune.

Besides of that Achebe portrays Okonkowo in the novel, as an individual that hates weakness, or laziness, and as an individual that responds to these attitudes with violence, and mercilessly, produced by his automatic instinct that cannot bear seeing his father’s attitudes that lead to failure. An example in the novel that shows how Okonkowo’s social status leads him to have a rude, and merciless attitude, is when he kills a child that he had been raising in front of some leades of his tribe, to not show weakness, and therefore, degrade his social status. Furthermore, not only in this situation, but during the whole novel, social status contributes to show Okonkowo’s attitude, like for example in the week of peace of the tribe, Okonkowo does not respect it beating his wife for not preparing the food, and being outside doing other things. In this situation Okonkowo, being aware of the kind of status that he has, he cannot allow his wife to do this to him, therefore having to beat her, to show here that serving him is such an important thing to do, that cannot be forgotten.

Lastly, in the death of Okonkwo, Achebe shows that Okonkowo, considering himself the bravest individual of the tribe, having won many wars, and being recognized as a war hero, decides to kill the commissioner that comes to the market to stop the meeting, which afterwards, it is the reason why he hangs himself. 

Prince of the Tides Paper 1 Analysis

Paper 1 Analysis

First of all, the text is a magazine article in which the biography of an Indian actor called Saif  Ali Khan is described. The evidence that proves this, is the structure that the text has, including a quote of a statement made by the Indian actor, a picture of him, and his biography, that includes several statements that he made in reference to his professional career.

Second of all, it is clear that the intended audience of the text is the group of individuals that purchase this magazine, interested in the film industry of India, more specifically Bollywood. The evidence that proves that the intended audience of the text is this specific group of individuals, is that the approach of the text is focused mainly in the professional life of the actor, describing his style, main roles in his films, and path during his entire career. Furthermore, the purpose of the text, is to inform the audience of Saif Ali Khan’s professional career, and besides of that, convince the audience of Saif’s success throughout his career presenting him as ‘’ Bollywood’s most unplanned success story in its super league  of stars’’( Line 5).

Essentially, the text describes Saif  Ali Khan’s professional career as a Bollywood actor. At the beginning of the text, it is explained that when Saif started his career in the 1990’s, along with three of his brothers, he brought a total new style to the Bollywood scene. In his early years, when the Indian celebrity was 20, he was regarded as the ‘’ man with the funny face’’(Line 12-13), and not so much attention was paid to him, but twenty years later, that way of looking at him changed. He was recognized as a celebrity in the comedy gender, and as a youth icon thanks to the performances of important roles in comedy shows, in which he received the help of the Generation X storytellers. Besides of that some information of his personal life is described, including the fact that at the beginning of his career he consumed heroin for a while, following the example of other actors, and besides of that a statement that he made is included. In this statement, he admits that at the beginning of his career, he just wanted to have fun,  and that it took long time for him to grow up after getting married, and having children. Eventually he admits that it was in the last years of his career that he really loved acting and enjoyed it. In the last paragraph, the text informs the audience of the fact that Saif’s wide range of abilities to perform different characters, helped him in terms of appeal and casting. Besides of that, once again the text emphasizes on the idea that even though the actor did not have the greatest start, afterwards he became a recognized celebrity due to his dynamic performances, and his desire of experiencing the performance of different characters. Moreover the text exposes the idea that, it is still uncertain if the Indian actor will be able in the future to not get consumed by the temptations that the richness of stardom offers. Lastly but not less important the text explains that nowadays the actor keeps challenging himself trying new things, like direction of fills, or the interpretation of a double-personality character.

The theme of the text is temptation, and human nature, since it shows how once a little bit of success is achieved the human get corrupted, forgiving which are the values that really value in life, and preferring to  get lost in the pleasures of the richness.

The tone of the text is critical, since it evaluates, and analyses the qualities of the actor that helped him to become a celebrity, and besides of that it also includes the cons, or mistakes that the actor committed throughout his career, thus showing and evaluation including the pros and cons of the actor. The mood of the text is clamed, as the text keeps narrating the different steps of Saif’s career that led him to his current success.

 In what concerns use of literary devices, the first literary technique used in the text is the title, which is a metaphor used by the author to attract the attention of the audience, the tides determine how far the water moves depending on the attraction of the moon, or the sun, therefore this idea is used to show that Saif has influence, since he is the King of the tides, he is the one that produces the attraction, in other words he is an influential person. Besides of that there is another metaphor in the lines 15-16 that is sued by the author to explain that choosing him for performing a temporary satire, it is an insurance since he will definitely perform well.

The structure used in the text, includes a title, a quote, a Graphic and three paragraphs. The title is used to persuade the audience to read the article, the quote is a quote of the Indian actor himself that is used as an introduction for the article, and the graphic, is a picture of the actor, which is put there with the intention of persuading the audience, since as it is noticeable in the picture, he appears with his shirt unbuttoned, which is a strategy to persuade the female audience to know about this person that appears in the picture, therefore, persuading it to read the article.

Furthermore the persuasive language used in this text is Pathos and Logos. First off there is no Ethos, since the author of the text is not given in the text, therefore evaluating whether it has credibility or not. The text has Logos, since it includes evidence of the information that it is providing through the use of quotes of the actor himself that corroborate the information that the author is presenting. Lastly, it has Pathos, since it appeals to emotion through the use of a graphic that raises the admiration of the audience, and through the use of a quote in which the actor expresses feelings when he says ‘’ I have started enjoying this film business from my heart’’.