Dahlia's English Class Blog

“Cry, the Beloved Country” is a novel written by Alan Paton about Stephen Kumalo – a black, Zulu priest who travels to the land of Johannesburg with the desire to reunite with his family members – his son, Absalom, and his sister, Gertrude – whom he’s never heard from in a long time every since they moved to Johannesburg. The novel is also set in a time period where South Africa was governed with racial injustice that heavily impacted the nation’s citizens. Hope and fear is a emotion that is common amongst the character of “Cry, the Beloved Country”. But what function do these common emotions play in the book? How does it influence the characters? And what purpose does influencing those characters do in the novel? Though by definition, fear and hope are contradicting feelings – they act as the same thing in “Cry, the Beloved Country”. And that is being a motivator for the characters. The emotions impacting those characters gives us an idea of the setting/situation the character(s)...

The major effects stereotypes have is that it drastically alters our way of thinking towards a particular group of people (be it a good or a bad thing), conceivably create inequality between groups of people, limits people's opportunities and freedom, and lastly places pressure on people. Some examples of these effects on people, is the inequality between men and women in history. By now, we all should recognize that even in modern society there's inequality between men and women - which is partially established by gender stereotypes. Because of gender stereotypes both gender's opportunities and freedom are constrained, and the two genders are expected to do certain things in a specific manner. Few of these gender stereotypes, is that women are supposedly "submissive and cry a lot" and that men are the "dominant and rarely cries". This obviously isn't the case, as a huge group of people can't be described with unreasonable over-generalized state...

How Can Humor be Used to Sell a Product? There are several ways humor is used in our daily lives - one of them though, is using humor to sell a product. One of the advertising strategies that companies use, is by incorporating humor into their advertisements. Which thus encourages consumers to purchase or buy the product (or idea) that the company is trying to advertise, by making them laugh. Which also leads to people remembering the product more.  When Should Humor be Used to Sell a Product? Companies should use humor to sell a product when the product itself, isn't controversial or problematic. It's also a good idea to use humor when attempting to sell a product, when you are trying to construct a friendly company. But c ompanies should be very careful when they're using humor to promote a product, because you don't want to exclude the people you are trying to promote the product to. It is also important to include the fact that different types of people have dif...

In my perspective, a theme that can be found in "Mid-Term Break", which is a poem by Seamus Heaney, is that you face obstacles, challenges or hard times when you grow up. In actuality, the poem is recalling a real, and mournful event that happened to the author himself, which is when his younger brother died due to a car crash. Throughout the poem, you can feel the depressing mood the author has over this tragic incident he and his family has to go through while he himself was still growing up/maturing. Mr. Heaney uses irony to develop the gloomy mood of the poem. An example of how he uses irony in his poem, is by comparing what the whole entire poem is actually about, and the title. When you read the title, you'd presumably think that the poem is generally going to be about joy, happiness and spending time with your friends while you're away at school. But for the people who has read this poem, we all know that the poem has a cruel plot twist: one where the autho...

Climbing Up a Tree by Dahlia Djami 8B He walked towards the tree, all big, round and brown, and decided that he'd challenge himself to go to the very top, and he did so, slowly but surely, He placed his feet on branches, and held tight to the branches above his head with his hands, he made sure that he held on to those branches tightly, Unless of course, he wanted to tumble back down, which he accidently did when he was 5, Slowly but surely, the man climbed up the big tree, always avoiding the thin branches, for he knew that it wouldn't support him, Unless of course, he wanted to re-enact what happened to him when he was 10, The birds chirping in the distance was his only source of company, but he didn't mind, because by then he was on the top, all safe and sound

I will be talking about the event of Jessica leaving her home and the role of justice in that event. To start, I'll be writing about a few facts that will be helpful for you,if you want to understand the whole entire situation better. First, is that Jessica had left her home so that she could marry Lorenzo, who is a Christian. The reason why I called out his religion, is because back in those days, Jews and Christians were filled with a lot of prejudice. And they absolutely hated each other, even if they didn't know that particular person very well. It'd be completely normal for a Jew to fight with a Christian, even if they didn't know that Christian person personally/ One very clear example of this, is when Antonio met Shylock for the first time so that he could ask him if he could lend him some money (it's also very important to take note that Antonio was a Christian and that Shylock was a Jew). And before they even knew each other, or even get to know each other,...

Something unfair that's happening to Portia and something unfair about Portia In this blog post, I'll be talking about something unfair that is happening to Portia and something unfair about Portia. So the unfair thing that is happening to Portia in this play by Shakespeare, is that when her father had passed away, part of his will was for Portia to marry. But the thing is though, Portia isn't allowed to choose who she marries, which is also part of her fathers' will. So the way they'd choose Portia's husband, is by having all of the people that want to marry her (suitors) and make them choose one out of three caskets. One casket would be filled with gold, the other silver, and the last one lead. If one of her suitors choose the casket which has a portrait of Portia in it, then they would marry her. Even if Portia doesn't like the person who chose the correct casket. But the unfair thing about Portia though, is that she's a bit racist. One of her suitor...