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Utilitarian trolley problem

2020-08-12 15:57:24 | 日記
下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- Utilitarian trolley problem,文章讲述基于“实用主义法”的基础,驾驶员可以通过以下方式进行计算。转移手推车杀死一个人比让五个人死亡更好。毕竟,重要的是社会效用的平衡。因此,在这种情况下,这很容易-五减一等于四!余额是四个人。他转移手推车而节省下来的四个人将继续为社会做出贡献。

Utilitarian trolley problem
The dilemma which the driver of the trolley faces is presented by the fact that if he did not made any effort to stop the train, he the trolley would run towards the five people on the train, if he lever the swift, the trolley would run towards another rail and another person would be killed.
Basing on the Act Utilitarian ground, the driver might compute in the following way. Killing one person by diverting the trolley is better than letting five people die. After all, what matters is the balance of social utility. Therefore, in this case, it is an easy job--five minus one is four ! The balance is four people. The four people saved by his diverting the trolley would continue to contribute to the society. Thus it seems that the above is all the computation and the driver would divert the trolley and save the five people by killing the other on the other rail. However, this is to simplify Act Utilitarianism. Act Utilitarianism might take into account the overall influences of this case on the society. Just imagine that people in his society might trapped in panic, once they learn that the trolley driver is doing such a thing basing on such a computation—they just don’t know when they would be killed by people in the name of social utility. Thus the driver would take into account whether his decision would lead to uncertainty and more bloodshed. If the driver found that no one knows that it is his calculation of utility which drives him to divert the trolley, he might divert the trolley, since no further costs would be caused by his actions.
However, on the Rule Utilitarian ground, no detailed calculation is involved. The driver might reason in the following way. He might resort to some rules based on the Principle of Utility. What matters is not the overall utility in his case, but rather certain rule suiting his case. If he knows that there is a rule saying that killing people with intention is always wrong to the extent that it always produces the lowest social utility, he would feel obligated to let the five people die. On the other hand, if he knows that there is a rule saying that killing people in this circumstance would always produce the most utility and thus is right to do that, he would divert the trolley.
Thus, it seems that on the utilitarian ground, this case is not a dilemma at all. By the computation grounded by utilitarian standpoint it is possible to make conclusive decision. What Utilitarianism cares is the overall social utility created by actions or rules. Even though there are two types of Utilitarianism—Act Utilitarianism and Rule Utilitarianism—their computation might drive to the same policy or decision in the end. Anyway, both are able to make conclusive decisions.
However, the utilitarian ground might confront some criticism. As for the act utilitarianism, people might respond that killing intentionally is always a murder, it could not be justified the lives of the five people saved by murder. However, Act Utilitarianism would respond that the concept “murder” is presupposing a moral judgment grounded by the Deontology ground—killing intentionally is always morally wrong and should be labeled as “murder”. For Utilitarianism, every moral judgment should be made on the ground of utility. Thus, killing is a morally neutral concept or action. It is possible that killing might be moral wrong in so far as it fails to produce the most balance of utility. However, there is no prior and negative definition of killing—murder.
When it comes to the issue of the resolution drawn by the Rule Utilitarianism, it is also disputable. Where are the rules based on the Principle of Utility? What if the rule requires that the driver in that circumstance should divert the trolley since it would produce the best overall balance of utility? Those rules might be challenging our commonsense morality! Rule Utilitarianism might reply that these rules are made by prudent legislators or impartial spectators. They have figured out rules producing the most benefit for the society as a whole and put them in Code or something like that. People just resort to it to act and do not have to make calculation any more. Yes, Utilitarianism is challenging our commonsense morality in some cases. However, it does not matter. The reason is that commonsense morality is unsystematic, incoherent, and thus, undependable. Commonsense morality resorts to intuitions, religious literatures, and the so-called Deontology. However, in some cases these three sources might deliver three conflicting rules. As a result, people would face moral dilemma. However, Utilitarianism has provided comprehensive, coherent, and dependable rules for people to live a moral life. On the Utilitarian ground, people can always figure out a decisive solution to certain cases and there would be no moral dilemma any more.

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The pluralistic social impact of the Black Death

2020-08-12 15:56:22 | 日記
下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- The pluralistic social impact of the Black Death,文章讲述最近,席卷西非的埃博拉疫情已致命。令大多数人惊讶的是,根据疾病控制与预防中心的科学家在2014年10月31日的报道,这种新型病毒已经杀死了4,992人。这是一种真正残酷的杀手,藏在西非的角落,但与另一种相比瘟疫,埃博拉病毒只是次要的,埃博拉病毒的影响只是刮擦表面。最致命的灾难是欧洲中世纪爆发的瘟疫-黑死病。它是人类历史上最毁灭性的流行病之一(阿德勒274)。

The pluralistic social impact of the Black Death
I.Introduction
1234Recently, there has been a fatal epidemic sweeping West Africa—Ebola. To most people’s surprise, this novel virus has already killed an estimated 4,992 people according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientists at 31,October, 2014. It is a really ruthless killer hiding in almost corner of West Africa, but when compared with another pestilence, Ebola is just a minor one and the impacts of Ebola just scratch the surface. The most lethal disaster is the plague that broke out in the Middle Age in Europe—Black Death. It was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history (Adler 274). The Black Death had so profound and far-reaching effects on Europe that it almost ruined Europe from the aspects of demographic, cultural, economy, social structure, politics and even religions. Many terrible impacts of this event still affect Europe and the world today. Before discussing the impacts of the Black Death, one must understand what it is and what it did.As Philip J. Alder explains in his book World Civilization, “The Black Death of the mid-and late fourteenth century is themost massive epidemic on record and by far the most lethal in European history”(273). It also occurred in most part of Asia and the Middle East during the same period, which means this outbreak was actually a worldwideepidemic. The event was firstcalled as the "Great Mortality" in Europe in the14th century, “Death came in about two cases out of three, with the highest morality being the old and young”(Kelly, 132). And with later outbreaks, it became known as the Black Death. The name comes from a symptom of the disease, in which sufferers' skin wouldblacken due to thehaemorrhage under the skin. But the later splash of the epidemic and the huge influence it created added a lot of terror to the name “the Black Death”

II.Demographic Impacts
The most direct and initial impact Black Death brought to Europe is the heavy death toll. As a major medium, rat fleas jumped to human bodies from rats and brought the virus to human beings, so that people could easily get infected. Between human beings, the virus could spread quickly by skin to skin contact, affected food intake and even respiratory tract infection (Tataro26). Besides, since the medical knowledge in the 14th century is undeveloped, not only common people, but also the government was not aware of the severity and nature of the disease. As a result of such a rapid spread of the virus and poor medical knowledge, more and more people got infected and could do nothing but wait to die. Although it is very difficult for historians to tell the exact deaths of the Plague for the lack of record, there’s still some estimate statistics. “In Europe alone, it is likely that from 1347 to 1352, the plague killed at least twenty million people” (Sharon). Gradually, the deaths in Europe were followed by a mass of deaths in the rest part of the world—totally, the initial plague infections and recurrences of the plague caused the world’s population to drop by at least 75 million people in the 14th century (Sharon). Because of this plague, the whole world lost a large population and the continent of Europe became an empty deserted wasteland.
If we take a closer look at the infected population, we would notice the mortality associated with the Black Death is highly selective. Sharon N. DeWitte, who comes from a medical field and shows the bubonic plague through medical terms, analyzes the demographical impacts of the epidemic in her article, Mortality Risk and Survival in the Aftermath of theMedieval Black Death. She believes the medieval epidemic mighthave powerfully shaped patterns of health and demography in thesurviving population, producing a post-Black Death populationthat differed in many significant ways, at least over the short term,from the population that existed just before the epidemic. (1) Like all other epidemic, the Black Death targets frail people of all ages at first and kills themwithin an extremely short period of time.The epidemic represents a force of natural selection and wipe out all that can not survive the challenge. In addition, according to Sharon, the epidemic might have affected genetic variation and thus, acted toreduce average levels of frailty in the surviving population.(2) In this case, we might be able to draw the conclusion that the Black Death guarantees the survivors are those physically stronger people and whose offspring have healthier DNA. Samuel K. Cohn, JR holds a slightly different opinion on that and of course his study mainly focuses on the cultural impacts of the Black Death.

III.Cultural Impacts
Historical records haveregarded the Black Death as an outbreak of bubonic plague. But Samuel K. Cohn, JR believes the truth is the other way around. While Sharon approaches the impact of the Black Death from the medical standpoint, Samuel views the Black Death more of a social phenomenon or a tragedy that occurred inevitably in history and made a scar on the progress of human civilization as well as on people’s memories. He explains in his article The Black Death: End of a Paradigm:“The character of the Black Death—its speed, mode of transmission,swiftness and psychological impact was wholly different from that of therat-based bubonic plague.” (35) The way Samuel describes the Black Death, using words like “transmission and swiftness” like the Black Death is a living thing, a scary monster, wrecking down towns and cities, taking lives of men and women and destroy civilization. Apart from the unique feature of the Black Death in terms of pathology, I believe although the epidemic serves as a force of natural selection, its immediate psychological strike among European people and its profound impact is what makes the disease as horrible as its name sound. Just like Samuel’s language, which is filled with sincere and gloomy emotion and depicts a sorrowful and obscure language styles, his study focus on the cultural aspects of impacts created by the Black Death and how the epidemic influence on human nature. As Samuel mentions,
The first sweep ofplague, 1347 to 1351, provoked as close to a universal chorus as one hears in history.Merchant chroniclers, priests, and university-trained doctors claimed that thismalady was new to world history, that doctors and medicine were useless, and thatall that could be done was to pray for God's mercy. Explanations of the plague werenot sought in the human sphere but in God's wrath and the configuration of planets. (3)
At the beginning of the plague, since people found no way to deal with it, most people thought it as a punishment that God put to human beings, so they prayed to God to put the plague to an end. Yet their prayers didn’t work so well, so they began to realize that religion could do nothing to stop the spread of the disease and their family’s suffering. Consequently, many people didn’t believe in God anymore and they refused to do church services in many areas. Actually, it implies the powerlessness of the churches when they ran into the plague and weaken the papal authority.The Black Death was so fierce and the Church was powerless to stop it, since people had no idea about viruses at that time. They started to question the Church and their interpretation of life. Apart from the consistently declining spiritual position of Church among normal people, they are losing money as well. With the help of the nobles, the Church successfully suppressed the peasant revolts caused by the Black Death. However, they still couldn’t get themselves out of declining situation. From the point of economy, most of the Church’s incomes were from lands. With the dropping food prices and the rising wages of labors, the Church and nobles can hardly maintain their income. This will be further discussed later.
Furthermore, the Black Death also had a great impact on European society.As mentioned before. Europe lost about half of its entire populations. With so many deaths, the society experienced several big changes which would influencethe development of society later.It’s worth noting that the epidemicincrease thepersecution of the Jews.During the Black Death, Jews were often targeted because people at that time were unable to explain the plague and were in panic. Fewer Jews were killed by the Black Death compared with other ethnic groups. On this occasion, together with the ethnic prejudice and hatred, many people began to wonder if this plague was a Jewish conspiracy or a curse from God that allowed Jews into their lands. So as a result, lots of Jews were arrested and persecuted. In fact, the reason why fewer Jews died during the Black Death was that their settlements were always isolated, and had better hygiene (Kohn, 200). However, this was not understood at that time.

IV. Economic Impacts
The Black Death destroyed the economyof Europe that would require a long timeto recover.After the plague had swept through Europe and reduced the population by a third, the prices of goods and food dropped off drastically because of the sudden surplus. Thus people began to bought things which they didn’t really need. However, excess amount of food had been consumed up, and the shortage of labor began to make an impact. Prices rose uprapidly and became as high as the pre-plague time. In addition, some places experienced a shortage of labor that was not relieved for at least two generations. Laborers were soon in high demand.They realized that their services were rare so they could charge any rate they want. As a result, wages for the surviving workers rose sharply (Routt, 2011). In response to this, governments created laws to limitwages. But this proved to be in vain and in turn would later cause peasant revolts in the later 14th Century.
12345In addition to the effects on wages, there were other economic effects as well. Towns were once the important centers of trade in the Late Middle Ages. Markets were located in the centers of towns and people from different places could trade with each other here. However, these towns werestruck severely after the Black Death. People lived in towns were much easier to be infected by the disease because of the poor sanitary condition.Thus, people abandoned many townsout of safety(Routt, 2011). As a result, trade was heavilyhindered, and there was no central location for people to meet and trade.

V.Conclusion
The Black Death was the terror of the MiddleAges. It affected almost every aspect of life in Europe. And where the plague struck, nothing could be the same. Millions of people died in this period. While some believe the Black Death serves as a force of natural selection and sees the rebirth of a physically-stronger human society. Others insist the epidemic destroys traditional ways of material and spiritual life, social and economic structures in Europe. In any case, the massive damage of the Black Death can’t he denied, but some of the changes caused by this terror turned out to be conducive to the development of society and human races. That’s why people always say: Every cloud has a silver lining.


Works Cited
Sharon, N. DeWitte. Mortality Risk and Survival in the Aftermath of theMedieval BlackDeath. PLoS ONE 9(5): e96513. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0096513
Samuel, K. Cohn JR.The Black Death: End of a ParadigmAmerican Historical Review. June 2002, Vol. 107 Issue 3, p703-738. 36p. 21 Graphs.
Adler, Philip J. World Civilizations.America: Wadsworth,2000.Print
Boccaccio, Giovanni. “The Black Death, 1348 .”Eye Witness History.,n.d. Web. 2 Jan. 2012. .
Byrne, Joseph Patrick. Encyclopedia of the Black Death. Santa Barbara: Clif, 2012. Print
Kelly, John. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History Of The Black Death, The MostDevastating Plague Of All Time. New York: Harper Collins, 2005.Print.
Kohn, George.Encyclopedia of plague and pestilence: from ancient times to the present. New York:Infobase Publishing, 2008. Print
Tatoro. Suffering in Paradise: The Bubonic Plague in English Literature from More to Milton. Pittsburg: Duquesne University Press, 2005, P26. Print.
Routt, David. “The Economic Impact of the Black Death.”Economic History.N.p.,n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2011. .

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The Mississippi River Flood in 1927

2020-08-12 15:54:47 | 日記
下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- The Mississippi River Flood in 1927,文章讲述当我第一次获得任务时,我第一次被“ 1915年在示威游行中被捕的妇女选举权主义者”这一话题所吸引。但是,当我开始在线搜索有关该主题的媒体报道时,并没有太多了解,我认为可以对其进行很好的分析。作为一个每年都会目睹洪水的国家的人,我转向在图书馆中搜索这个话题。根据我以前搜索第一个主题的经验,我首先去了国会图书馆,在搜索栏中输入了“ 1927年密西西比洪水”的关键词,然后我选择了前三张照片作为论文。

The Mississippi River Flood in 1927
I was first attracted to the topic of “Women Suffragists Arrested for Picketing the White House in 1917” when I first got the assignment. But when I began to search media coverage for the topic online, there were not much about it, which I thought could be well analyzed. As a person from the country which would witness flood every year, I turned to search this topic in the libraries. Based on my former experience of searching the first topic, I first went to the Library of Congress and typed the key words of “Mississippi Flood 1927” in the search column, and then I chose the first three photographs for my essay. The next step I did was to find another two media forms in UW Library. First I chose “E-Newspapers, Media, Maps&More”, hoping to find some films or newsreels by clicking on “Audio & Video”, however it turned out to be a failure, so I began to focus on journals and newspapers, which offered me bunch of choices. For newspaper, I clicked on “E-Newspapers and News” and picked “New York Times”, which seemed a big publisher and familiar to me than others. When I was watching TV news about flood back in my own country, what impressed me most was always the victims’ sad face and misery situation after their home were ruined, so I didn’t hesitate choosing the article VICTIMS OF FLOOD STILL PLEAD FOR AID when I saw the title. The last media form I targeted was periodical, I clicked on “American Periodicals” after opening the collection “Articles & Research Databases”. When I typed the key words, the first article “Mississippi-on She Flows” was the first popping in my sight. After opening the article, I found the way it was written was very interesting in terms of its personification of Mississippi River and other usage of metaphor, so I decided to take it for my analysis.
Mississippi River Flood first began in the summer of 1926 with heavy rains in Mississippi’s central basin and then deteriorated into big flood in 1927. By June, the flood began to recede and subsided from July. Levee systems in hundreds of places were broke out by the Mississippi River and twenty-seven thousand square miles were inundated, which was the size of several American states. The Most hard-hit area was the Mississippi Delta, which was also most fertile land in the country and Kansas was affected most with 14% of its land being flooded. The flood killed 246 people in seven states and the loss was about 400 million dollars. It is so far the biggest flood disaster and still keeping its record in American history. The consequence of the flood was tremendous. There were much study on the aftermath of the flood and one of the most heated discussions was about the immigration of African-American to the North and the racial discrimination showed in the rescue and also how the plantation owners prevented the black people’s escape from the devastated area.
The first picture is showing the flood forming into a waterfall and the next two pictures are about damages the flood has caused on the houses. Some houses’ roof collapsed and some houses’ foundation was moved. By looking at the three pictures, we know how big the flood is and how much the damage it can bring. Though the photographing technology back then was no compare to what we are able to do today, but they still clearly tell us the information of the flood in a very vivid way. The period has proved its capability to report just by pictures. They have shown us indirectly the difficulty of the time by grasping the wreckage of the disaster. Unlike the pictures during the Civil War period, the photos at this time were much more authentic and intended to tell the public the facts.
The periodical Mississippi-on She Flows is mainly about persuading the government to build reservoir by listing the numbers and how devil the flood can be if there is nothing to be done as well as the value reservoir might bring. From the title throughout the body of the article, it tries to attract the readers by its unique way of reporting. Here personification of the river can be seen in many places. The periodical has its target readers, religious people. Religious tone is adopted in many parts of the article. “To deal with so supreme an expression of physical energy is one of the mightiest tasks ever envisioned by man”. Many black people were the victims of the disaster and also most the American people were religious. So the writer intended to attract more readers by speaking with some religious tone.
The report from New York Times, Victims of Flood Still Plead for Aid is recruiting for fund for the relief work. It states that famine would happen if there is not continual aid from the society after the Red Cross runs out of the fund. The article shows the readers the bad situation by citing Wade Negus’s remarks. Although it says about victims’ health condition in the last paragraph, we can still know that the biggest concern of the newspaper is the banks’ interest. Business interest is skillfully permeated in the article, which is another way of advertising.
The above three media forms report flood with their own characteristics. The photos describe the disaster in a simple but vivid way. The periodical and the newspaper indirectly tell us the information by focusing on certain aspects. The media form with pictures and the other two with words embody the event in totally different ways. The forms of periodical and newspaper have very distinctive objective while the pictures only show us what the truth is. The forms with words both show their skill in attracting and persuading the readers with their own way. However, the periodical and the newspaper also carry their uniqueness. Periodical is often published weekly, monthly or annually while newspapers are mostly daily, so periodical contains more emotion while newspapers mainly focus on the time effectiveness. Both Mississippi-on She Flows and Victims of Flood Still Plead for Aid aim at the future, but the first one aims at a longer future, building reservoir and the second one aims at a near future, satisfying the need of the victims.












Bibliography
1.Mississippi-on She Flows; The Independent (1922-1928), May 7, 1927; Pg. 481, American Periodicals; 6 November, 2014.
URL:http://search.proquest.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/americanperiodicals/docview/90604859/8AEDEC7D45C44668PQ/2?accountid=14784
2.Victims of Flood Still Plead for Aid, 3 July, 1927; New York Times, N.Y.; Pg. E1 ; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2010); 6 November, 2014.
URL:http://search.proquest.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/104122211/BD805A5736B248C6PQ/406?accountid=14784
3.“Mississippi flood”, 1927; Prints and Photographs Online Catalog; 6 November, 2014.
URL: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/20026/
4.“Large house moved off its foundation, part of roof collapsed following the Mississippi flood of 1927”, 18 July 1927; Ewing, Inc.; Prints and Photographs Online Catalog; 6 November, 2014.
URL: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002699302/
5.“Two houses, damaged during the Mississippi flood of 1927, moved off their foundations to the edge of an unpaved road” , 24 August 1927; Ewing, Inc.; Prints and Photographs Online Catalog; 6 November, 2014.
URL:http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002699309/

The devastating effects of Ebola

2020-08-12 15:53:21 | 日記
下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- The devastating effects of Ebola,文章讲述自从西非埃博拉疫情爆发和美国发现埃博拉病例以来,由于其灾难性影响,媒体对这一世界危机给予了很多关注。许多新闻聚焦于奥巴马政府对埃博拉的态度。正如我读到的一条新闻所示,美国现在将埃博拉作为首要任务,采取了许多行动来缓解它。“巴拉克·奥巴马总统召集他的高级顾问到白宫参加了罕见的星期六晚上会议,讨论了这种情况。 ”。一方面,美国向西非部署了物资丰富的部队和人员。另一方面,它也开展活动来培训包括医疗保险工作者在内的人们以保护自己。

The devastating effects of Ebola
Since the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa and the discovery of Ebola case in United States, media has paid a lot of attention to this world crisis given by its disastrous impact. Many news has focused on the attitude of Obama Administration towards Ebola. As a piece of news I have read shows, US now has regarded Ebola as a priority, taking a lot of actions to relieve it and “President Barack Obama called his top advisers to the White House for a rare Saturday night meeting to discuss the situation”. On one hand, US has deployed troops and personnel to West Africa, with abundant supplies. On the other hand, it also open activities to train people, including medicare workers to protect themselves.
In the case of Ebola, Obama Administration has taken an active and responsible role in dealing with it.
I agree with Obama on the assistance to West Africa, which, as I consider, is the responsibility of a world leader. On one hand, regardless of political disputes, we should provide help to any country whenever they come across disasters that may threaten the lives of local people. On the other hand, Ebola first extended from West Africa and if the situation there cannot be controlled, it may turn out to be a world tragedy. Therefore, it is the right thing for Obama States to help Africa.
Another action that Obama Administration has done correctly is to train people to protect themselves. Actually, many cases of Ebola could be prevented if the infected person had been cautious enough, which means that many people have not clearly known about the knowledge of Ebola or not attached higher attention to it. This would be a dire threat as the situation of Ebola get worse and more illiterate people, especially those in poor regions get involved.
As for the domestic US, I believe that there are two aspects can be strengthened. First, even though the United States have excellent health care system and high standard of sanitation, the government should be more cautious as case has been discovered. Second, as American people become more fear about Ebola and bad emotion surrounds the country, more measures should be taken to comfort people. Domestic stability should be guaranteed whatever happens.
In conclusion, I agree that Obama administration has been putting more efforts in Ebola and trying its best to maintain international safety. Furthermore, I believe that together with the international community, US can do better and prevent the Ebola disaster.

Reference
Fronting Ebola A U.S. Top Priority. Nov 5, 2014.
Retrieved from http://www.51voa.com/VOA_Standard_English/confronting-ebola-a-top-priority-59205.html

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Temporal and spatial analysis of gender representation

2020-08-12 15:52:32 | 日記
下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- Temporal and spatial analysis of gender representation,文章讲述长期以来,电影一直被视为社会观念和当前状况的代表。如果我们专注于电影如何处理性别问题,那么毫无疑问,我们会发现大多数电影都可以归类为认可女性还是男性。本文分析了两部电影,它们可以证明是女权主义的最代表,但是它们的表现方式不同。 The Hours被视为一部完全支持女性追求自由和自我救赎的电影。

Temporal and spatial analysis of gender representation
ⅠIntroduction
Films are so long regarded as the representation of social concepts and current situations. If we focus on how films deal with gender issues, we would find out with no doubt that most of the movies can be categorized as whether approval of femininity or masculinity. In this paper, two movies are analyzed which can be proved as most representative of feminism, however in different manners. The Hours is regarded as a movie totally supporting of females chasing after freedom and self-salvation. It depicts three women’s pathetic lives by which to demonstrate how tragic of female to revolt and resist against tedious family situation they are in. The other one, Notting Hill, is by contrast, a comedy but also delivers a concept that women could also be more successful in career and more glamorous than men and it is also possible that a woman fall in love with a man who is less successful than her. The concept this movie contains is rather feminism too and compared with the former one, the way of depicting feminism of Notting Hill is more allusive and less pathetic. The two movies indeed have some impacts on their audiences and may strike people to reflect their own life and change their perceptions.
ⅡThe Hours
Though directed by Stephen Daldry, a male director, this movie is totally a masterpiece and opens a new chapter in conveying and guarding feminism. This movie connects three women’s life in three different times through a great novel, Mrs. Dalloway, by a female English writer Virginia Woolf, and describes how all of them are eager of freedom, meanwhile mired in pathetic reality and tangled mental state. (The Hours) The connections between three women living in distinct eras are the most unique part of this movie, the female writer Woolf living in 1923, the housewife Laura, and the modern lady Clarissa in New York. They have their own lovers who are faithful, tolerant and easy-tempered, however all the heroines are suffering from their own solitude and bitterness, which on the other hand reflects a fact that though their lovers offer them a harmonious family, their heart can merely be understood and some of their obscure emotions can merely be shared by their husband or female lovers. Taking the writer Woolf as an example, at the beginning of this movie, Virginia committed suicide and left a letter which said “…You have given me the greatest happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I know that I am spoiling your life, and without me, you could work.… You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good.…I don’t think two people could have been happier than we have been.”(The Hours) One question may be raised up towards the suicide of Virginia that why would she commit suicide when she was beloved by her faithful husband. This may indeed reflect what most of the females are going through. Though they are in a harmonious relationship with their lovers, their inner heart was struggling, perplexed and even despaired.
One noticeable plot is that the three heroines kissed females or had a homosexual relationship once in the movie. Virginia kissed her own sister who came to visit her. Laura kissed her own neighbor who was also a woman. Clarissa had a female lover, Sally with whom she had lived together for ten years and had a daughter. There may seem to be coincident for Virginia kissing her sister and Laura kissing her neighbor and some may regarding the plots as nonsense and irrational. However, when both Virginia and Laura were kissing another female, they were both suffering psychologically, like Virginia having been staying in depression for a long time and was keeping under the supervision of her husband and servant, and Laura was also suffering from her harmonious and also boring marriage. (The Hours) So, the kissing plot is never a coincidence but rather the revolution and resistance of the two heroines towards their tranquil life. It is a representative of them being eager of vitality, love and enthusiasm towards life.
Another scene that is also distinguishing in this movie is that all the three heroines seem to have deep and strong connection with death. The movie starts with Virginia committing suicide. Then Laura, a house wife who is motivated by Virginia’s novel, also has pretended to left her son and husband and commit suicide in a hotel. Clarissa is the only one who has never had the idea of ending her life, but somehow she has been taking care of a sick man who is at the edge of death for ten years. It seems that Clarissa is the opposite of Virginia and Laura, since the latter two heroines are trying to end their life which tends to be a little bit indifferent about the value of life and Clarissa seems to regard life as extremely important. From the surface, there may seem to be a controversy. However, the reason why Clarissa holds other people’s life so precious is because she could fulfill her lonely heart and give herself an excuse that her life is going on well and she is happy and busy. Taking of the sick man takes up Clarissa a lot of time of her life and that makes her feel fulfilled that she could lie to herself she had a normal and happy life. In the movie, all that Clarissa is doing is preparing a party for Richard, by which she wants to cheer up him and re-build his confidence towards life. However, when Clarissa failed to persuade Richard to join in the party and failed to cheer him up, she was put in front of the reality, or the real thought that she has been covering for all the past years, that she is living meaningless. What Richard said to her proved how Clarissa has been escaping for years, “I think I’m living just to satisfy you.…Just wait till I die, then you’ll have to think of yourself.” (The Hours) Later, Clarssa confesses herself to her daughter “When I’m with him, I feel…Yes, I am living. And when I’m not with him, yes, everything seems sort of silly.” (The Hours) For Virginia and Laura, the fact that they are trying to escape what they are suffering in daily life by committing suicide is more apparent.
ⅢNotting Hill
If The Hours is labeled as depicting female in a pessimist and sympathetic manner, Notting Hill could be marked as using a positive and aspiring way to focus on the importance of female. Instead of creating a pathetic and depressing atmosphere that would provoke audiences to introspect and reflect, Notting Hill is rather warm and romantic considering the way it expresses feminism. The movie begins with a classical and beautiful music She, of which the lyrics are all about praising the beauty of female. As the song sings, “She may be the reason I survive, the why and wherefore I’m alive, the one I’ll call for through the rough and ready years.” (Notting Hill) Accompany the music are the beautiful and fabulous images of the heroine Anna Scott surrounded by all kinds of flashing lights and cameras under various grand occasions. Then, the poor, normal and insignificant life of the hero William was depicted through several daily life scenes described by William himself as he is walking through the market, street pedlar bargaining with customers and a small book store owned by him going through a deficit. The director presented two different types of life in front his audiences at the first beginning moment of the movie. However, love is generated exactly between the two main characters that are far from each other like heaven and earth.
The plot in which Anna and William meet each other at the first time in William’s book store is rather impressing and indicated that this is a love story that female’s importance is manifested, which is totally different with some classical romantic movie in which hero always plays leading role. When Anna walks into William’s book store, she attracts the attention of William’s completely. William then offers help warmly, even though Anna turns down his offer, he keeps talking trying to get her notice or please her all the time, like sending her one more book and saying “Useful for, uh, lighting fires, wrapping fish, that sort of thing.” From this line, it is not hard to tell that William is trying to build a good and interesting image to Anna. The latter plot in which William splits coffee on Anna and stains her shirt also reflects the inferior status the hero is than the heroine. The moment Anna walked into William’s house, it was so nervous of William to rush to shuffle dirty plates and wipe the table.(Notting Hill)Also, when Anna left his house, William waited anxiously for Anna’s phone call, and when he finally get through the line with Anna, he was jabbering all the time. Audiences could tell from the details that in this relationship that the hero is compliant to the heroine. This is a movie that put the heroine at a high status than the hero, and illustrates the value and dignity of womem.
Ⅳ Conclusion
In classical movies, the sign ‘woman’ “represents the ideological meaning that ‘woman’ has for men.”(Anneke, 353) “In relation to herself, she means no-thing.” (Anneke, 353) “Women are negatively represented as ‘not-man’. The ‘woman-as-woman’ is absent from the text of the film.”(Anneke, 353) That was the comment that the former feminism film critics made towards classical Hollywood movies. Movies like the Iron Man, the Bat Man or other superhero movies are all concentrated on how male superheroes save the world while the heroine in all those movies always seem to be attachments or symbols of beauty for audiences to feast their eyes on. However, compared with those kinds of movies, the Hours is a movie focusing on the mental and psychological part of female and tries to explain and understand what females are going through in modern society. Notting Hill is a love story in which the famous and glamorous heroine seems to be the decision maker of this love relationship with a poor book store owner. And that point or characteristic of the two movies makes them to be categorized as feminist movies by which the producers are willing to explain, hear and comfort female’s inner and obscure feelings instead of regarding them as some kind of appendants of men. Movies are the reflection of reality and it can be viewed as “constructing a particular, ideological view of reality.”(Anneke353) It is never a negative thing for movie makers to move their center away from male since a more equal human society is needed.

Works Cited
Notting Hill. Michell, Roger. 1999, Universal/MCA.
Smelik, Anneke. “Feminist Film Theory.” The Cinema Book2, London: British Film Institute, (1999): 353-365.
The Hours. Daldry, Stephen. 2002, RCV Film Distribution.

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