List given to choose from Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

List given to choose from - Research Paper Example Brian Turner is an American army veteran who served the army for seven years. He was assigned in Bosnia in 1999 and Herzegovina in 2000. Later, in 2004 he served as a team leader in the first Stryker brigade sent to Iraq, and was stationed near Mosul for much of 2004. As a poet, Turner’s contributions to war poetry, as Clover and Brouer note, are his earnest and proficient observations of war, which the audience would not find in a press release. In his poems, Turner provides his reflections of war apart from the Yeatsian style, which is said to â€Å"negotiate between the expectations of antiwar audience and the demands of American poetry as a national genre† (Metres 14). Instead, Turner employs seriality in his poems. The term seriality was first introduced by Jean-Paul Sarte and was later used by Iris Marion Young to refer to the collectivity of women â€Å"based on social experiences† (Zack 139). In this paper, the term seriality is used not just to refer to women but to a group of people with the same experiences, particularly soldiers or promoters of peace. In â€Å"Here, Bullet,† one can conceive the seriality among soldiers, not just American soldiers. The persona in the poem is a soldier who challenges bullet in his body to take his life, saying, â€Å"I dare you to finish what you have started. ..triggering my tongue’s explosives for the riffling I have inside of me† (8-9, 12-13). By talking to the bullet this way, the persona embodies every soldier’s view of life and death. Turner does not limit the identity of his persona to an American soldier. There are no descriptions to identify the soldier’s nationality. As such, the poem achieves universality as it deals with the struggles of soldiers for life. The seriality in Turner’s poems leads the audience to empathize with soldiers and feel resistance to war. The poem does not limit the audience to share the author’s political view of war. Instead, the poem guide the readers to gain personal insights and understanding of the issue by submerging them into the experience and not just soliciting reactions or observations as other poems usually do. This view of the audience as active participants in the experience is in accordance with Adorno’s view (Metres 13). Specifically, in Turner’s award-winning poem, â€Å"Here, Bullet,† the author powerfully uses the first-person perspective to address a bullet that is supposed to cause the persona’s death. The persona uses an implied personification and talks straight to the bullet, saying, Because here, Bullet,/here is where I complete the word you bring (9-10). As the readers recite the poem, they are led to assume the persona’s identity by the use of â€Å"I.† Addressing an inanimate object such as a bullet signifies a one-sided conversation that captures the interest of the readers to engage in the communication either as the per sona or the addressee. Unlike in a monologue where the persona controls his/her thoughts as he/she addresses him/herself, the dialogue allows the audience to participate as either the persona or the addressee, thus achieving seriality not only among soldiers but peacemakers alike. Turner’s use of polyvocal collage invites the readers to be active participants to the war experience or the journey. The term polyvocal collage suggests the use of different speakers in the

Consumerism and the loss of identity in the Middle East (Dubai and Essay

Consumerism and the loss of identity in the Middle East (Dubai and Doha) - Essay Example This paper seeks to identify how consumerism has affected the lives of the people and the paper focuses on exploring the concept of consumerism as it has developed in recent years in the Middle East. Globalization as a phenomenon is also studied to determine how the economic progression of the Middle Eastern countries has encouraged a culture of consumerism. The result is a change in cultural and social perceptions and this change is closely related to the consumerist culture which seems to have transformed traditional identities in the Middle East. The focus of this research is also on the consumerist culture pertaining to women and their compulsive buying behavior. Some of the works I have referred to include Consumption by Robert Bocock which explores the history of consumerism and The Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolf, a work that addresses the situation of women in terms of beauty and how it has been used as a marketing tool and created an obsession with physical appearance. This essay explores the concept of consumerism and its relationship with social trends and perceptions and highlights the extensive marketing networks that define consumption patterns. The relationship between capitalistic consumption and cultural traditional identities is also explored to study religious, psychological, political and social dimensions in the Middle East. Consumption in its economic term refers to consumers buying and using the things they ‘need’. However as explored in Consumption by Robert Bocock, there has been a shift in the way consumption is defined. Consumption is founded on the basis of a need and a constant sense of incompleteness that is compensated with material things. This is because consumers desire the â€Å"unattainable- that is the satiation of all their desires.† Constant consumption itself should not be seen as a consumption of material things, but a consumption of