Apocalypse Now Essays (Examples)

illard's internal trauma is representative of the shock many Americans must have felt at seeing the violence inflicted in their name, and thus his killing of Kurtz represents a kind of superficial destruction of the "bad seed" that supposedly tainted the otherwise respectable and honorable American military. By focusing on the "primitive" evil embodied by Kurtz, the film allows the more "subtle and civilized manifestations of evil" in the form of American foreign policy to go unquestioned (Maier-Katkin 584-585). One can see the irony of American imperialism supposedly being "defeated" in Apocalypse Now simply by noting that just a few months after its release in August of 1979, the Iranian Revolution and subsequent hostage crisis once again brought to the fore the widespread and ongoing effects of American imperialism.

In addition acting as a salve for those audiences repellant at the horror of imperialism while reluctant to admit any complicity in…

And why not?"
This novella is, above all, an exploration of hypocrisy, ambiguity, and moral confusion. It explodes the idea of the proverbial choice between the lesser of two evils. As the idealistic Marlow is forced to align himself with either the hypocritical and malicious colonial bureaucracy or the openly malevolent, rule-defying Kurtz, it becomes increasingly clear that to try to judge either alternative is an act of folly: how can moral standards or social values be relevant in judging evil? Is there such thing as insanity in a world that has already gone insane? On his boat journey to his mission's starting point, Willard remembers the other times he had killed: "There were those six that I knew about for sure, close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time, it was an American and an officer. It wasn't supposed to make any difference to…

Okonkwo's journey is one of self-imposed exile. So, too, is the journey of the Kurtz character in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and Coppola's Apocalypse Now. Thus, Kurtz takes the place of the protagonist as being the symbolic character catalyst in Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart. The Kurtz character is more similar to the Okonkwo character than either Marlow or Willard. For this reason, Kurtz can be considered a default protagonist. The journey that Kurtz took has already happened, though. The reader of Heart of Darkness and the viewer of Apocalypse Now does not know how Kurtz got to that point. All we know is that Kurtz lost his mind, went insane, and is now a freak example of the heart of darkness of the human soul.

Even if their exile is self-imposed, Okonkwo and Kurtz remain a world apart from the rest of society. Psychologically and spiritually, Okonkwo and…

Euro v Afro Centric Perspectives
The unfolding of events can be told from a variety of perspectives that are highly influenced by an individual's background and personal prejudices. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe provide two distinct and polar perspectives. Heart of Darkness, and consequently the film adaptation Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, provides an Anglo-centric perspective on colonialism and imperialism, whereas Things Fall Apart provides an Afro-centric account of the events that transpire.

Heart of Darkness, published in 1899, follows Charles Marlow as he sets out to meet Mr. Kurtz, a smart and successful ivory trader who has established residency and taken over a village at Central Station. Conrad creates a very imperialistic character through Kurtz. Like many imperialistic countries that sought to expand their territories for political and financial gain, Kurtz seeks out to explore as much of Congo for personal…

MOVIE APOCALYPSE NOW Abstract: This is an analysis of the use of the Vietnam War as a cultural backdrop in the movie Apocalypse Now. It outlines how Francis Coppola uses Vietnam War as the basis for cultural differentiation, how director uses the narrator / voice over of Willard and it accounts for two combats during the journey up river. It uses only the movie as a source in MLA format.
Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now is one in a series of Vietnam War story. With Vietnam as the cultural backdrop, Coppola presents the bizarre war environment through the behavior of the various characters of the movie especially Kurtz and Kilgore. To make the Vietnam War experience more personal Coppola uses voice over of the protagonist Willard (played by Martin Sheen), transitioning his uncultured, all-American thoughts to gradually one of a soldier in Vietnam. In essence Willard is an assassin sent to…

Real Hearts Going After Apocalypses
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad was one of the first works of fiction to explore modernist notions of reality, and specifically, what makes an experience "real." "Apocalypse Now" can, in many ways, be thought of as the transposition of Conrad's ideas onto a modern war. Tim O'rien's Going After Cacciato investigates similar themes concerning mental and physical interpretations of reality and is also placed in the Vietnam War. Together, these three works provide insights into the minds of Francis Ford Coppola, Tim O'rien, and Joseph Conrad; in particular, they reveal how these three artists structure their interpretations of reality through direct experience, memories, and dreams.

Conrad was, of course, a pre-modernist author. He did not go as far as many that followed him, like Wolfe or Hemmingway, who jumped from moment to moment, and perspective to perspective in an effort to represent reality as a combination…

Apocalypse of Art in the Tech Era
Modern Apocalypse Art and Technological Aspects

The purpose of this paper is to examine modern art, in particular that which is referred to as "apocalypse art" and further to examine the interactions between art and technology. Specifically this paper will look at the new dimensions that technology has contributed to the rendering of art as well as what contribution or impact that art has rendered to technology.

The methodology for this study is through examination of several of the artists as well as scholars who are in some way interconnected in this process of producing apocalypse art.

The question that seems to weigh on the minds of those who view the modern "apocalypse" art exhibits asks:

Has this artist attempted to achieve the effect of shock or is the artist attempting to convey some deeper truth?"

London's Art Gallery featured an exhibit entitled "Apocalypse" in the year of 2000.…

Walk to the End of the World
It is a post-apocalyptic account of a journey of a father and his young son over a time of several months, across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that has destroyed most of civilization and, in the interceding years, all life on Earth. George and his child Tim proceed with a trip together where they know they won't survive. The area is loaded with fiery remains and without living creatures and vegetation. A significant number of remaining human survivors have depended on savagery, searching the debris of city and nation alike for substance. The boy's mom, pregnant with him at the season of the catastrophe, surrendered trust and conferred suicide some time before the story started, in spite of the father's requests. Acknowledging they can't survive the approaching winter where they are, the father takes the boy south, along unfilled streets towards…

Horror, the Horror:
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness vs. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now

I stood on this hillside, I foresaw that in the blinding sunshine of that land I would become acquainted with a flabby, pretending, weak-eyed devil of a rapacious and pitiless folly. How insidious he could be, too, I was only to find out several months later and a thousand miles farther -- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

The director Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 Vietnam epic entitled Apocalypse Now makes a direct analogy in its symbolism as well as its plot structure with Joseph Conrad's famous 1899 novella about colonialism in the Belgian Congo entitled Heart of Darkness. This is most notable in the character played by Marlon Brando: Colonel Kurtz, who is named after Conrad's Kurtz, an important figure in a fictional ivory trading company in the Congo. Both works present white men that have, for various reasons,…

God created the dispensations and guides humanity differently during each period. C.I Scofield outlines the dispensations including Innocence, Conscience, Human Government, Promise, Law, Church, and Kingdom ("End Times" 4). Dispensationalism is based on a literal and unequivocal interpretation of the Bible ("End Times" 4). Efird, for instance, describes dispenstionalism a historically accurate and nearly scientific method of discerning Biblical prophecy based on a close reading of the sacred text. Efird claims that dispensationalism prevents the "disappointment and embarrassment" that has plagued believers in the apocalypse (7). Dispensationalism is a relatively new type of Christian eschatology and has the unique hallmarks of American Protestantism. The Catholic Church does not embrace a strict interpretation of millennialism. On the contrary, Catholics prefer a more symbolic interpretation of the Book of Revelations ("End Times" 4).
Regardless of the denomination of Christianity, the end times is central to the religion's teachings, its cosmology, its theology,…

classic films, and what makes them classic. Specifically, it will contain a discussion of what makes a film "classic" and use a specific film that I believe is classic, with good quality reasons for the answer.
CLASSIC FILS

The term "classic film" often evokes thoughts of an old film, often shown and enjoyed by audiences throughout many decades. The film could be a musical, such as "The Wizard of Oz," or a drama, such as "Apocalypse Now." Both films (and scores of others) have been called classics, and are often shown on network and cable channels. What makes these films classic?

Some might say it is the acting that makes a film a classic. In "The Wizard of Oz," for example, each actor, from Judy Garland as Dorothy, to argaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch is perfectly cast, and creates their role with great talent and charm. They set the stage for…

Post Colonial Literature
Historical literature is filled with examples of pre- and post-colonialist paradigms. Within each of these models, however, there is a certain part of a larger story that can only be told in the larger view of the historical process. One of the grand themes that help us wade through that process is that of the dehumanization of the individual. For whatever psychotically reasons, humans seem to have the need to change others into less than human in order to subjugate them economically, intellectually, or culturally. We might even think of the process of imperialism as practiced by the European powers as dehumanization of culture and society; begun at the micro level and then evolving into the macro. This dehumanization was particularly exemplified by the manner in which indigenous cultures were decimated, how families were torn apart and scattered all over the Empire, and the manner in which the…

The central focus of the book is the search for self and identity and an attempt to answer the question of what happens when men leave the protective normative and restraining influence of society. The central figure of Kurtz is a man who has broken free of the constraints of a sick society. However the novel also questions whether Kurtz too has become evil and lost his own sense of direction. The question is posed questions whether the human "heart of darkness" is not the real problem. If one interprets the book from this perspective, as a work that states that human nature or the human heart is essentially flawed, then one could conclude that Heart of Darkness is in fact more gloomy or pessimistic then the Wasteland.
The Heart of Darkness is a complex work that can be interpreted on many different levels: psychological, sociological, ethical and political. The…

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Joseph Conrads novella Heart of Darkness is a fictionalized account of real-life historical events that took place during the colonial era in Africa. The novel centers on the protagonist Charles Marlow, known throughout the book as Marlow. As Marlow travels deeper and deeper down the river on a mission for the Company, he becomes increasingly horrified and shocked by what he sees. Having witnessed first hand the insane cruelty of colonial oppression, Marlow completely reconsiders his own role in the world. Through Heart of Darkness, Conrad conveys anti-colonial sentiments, showing how racism and exploitation are detrimental to all human societies.
Topics
Joseph Conrads Heart of Darkness is one of the most important works of literature you will be asked to encounter in your academic career. Because of this, you may need some tips on how to write about Heart of Darkness. At first, writing about famous novels like this one can seem…

There is a direct correlation with, say, Henry Hill's cocaine abuse and the increasingly rapid cuts between shots. Faster-paced narrative parallels quicker-moving shots. When viewers finally see the film in the theater, the finished product reads like a cohesive narrative when in fact the filmmakers strung together disparate shots and cuts and combined them later after thousands of hours of painstaking labor. Analyzing a movie must therefore include respect for the editorial prowess of the post-production crew.
Editors must be intimately familiar with the screenplay they work with, especially in films that do not have a linear narrative. For instance, Christopher Nolan's 2000 film Memento describes one man's struggle with memory degradation. elying on a non-linear plot, the filmmaker depended on the post-production crew to adequately convey the disjointedness of amnesia. Other elements like dramatic irony, in which the audience is privy to information that protagonists do not have access…

Yet, we also see that he still does not understand the true origin of the beast -- the human within. The fact that he dies before he is successful, yet the monster obviously goes off to end his own fate, indicates that the evil both originated, and eventually died with him -- the true source from which it sprang.
Victor Hugo's Hunchback: An Illustrative Device

In Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame, there exists a strikingly similar theme -- if different in form. Although it is definitely true that Hugo's famous Quasimodo is a bit more innocuous than the Frankenstein monster, he nonetheless evokes a certain horror if only in appearance. Yet, much like in Shelley's work, Hugo brings out the monster that is human nature within the other character's interactions, motivations, and actions in the story.

There is little question that Hugo fully intended Quasimodo to evoke horror in his readers.…

Meantime my favorite character is James T. "Joker" Davis, who is the main protagonist, and also the narrator. He eventually becomes a reporter for the Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes, and true to Kubrick's style of developing fascinating characters, he's a paradox: he wears a peace sign on his uniform but on his helmet it says "Born to Kill." A colonel sees Davis' peace symbol and the following funny dialogue takes place. The Colonel asks, "Marine, what is that button on your body armor?" "A peace symbol, sir." "here'd you get it?" "I don't remember sir." "hat is that you've got written on your helmet?" "Born to Kill, sir." "You write 'Born to Kill' on your helmet and you wear a peace button. hat's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?" "No sir." "You'd better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take…

There are a wide range of issues it consider here; from the effect that changed ecosystems can have on the general environment to studies of the 'disappearing' coral reef and the glaciers that are rapidly melting. "Scientists predict that composition and range of many ecosystems will shift as species respond to climate change..." (eschatology of the left)
This will also have an impact on the forests and it is estimated that as much as two-thirds of the worlds footrests will be affected.

Figure 1. Comparison of emissions source: (http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/recognizing-forests-role-in-climate-change.html)

2.1. The media and the construction of perceptions

Taking into account the enormous significance of global warming and the potential that it poses for the disruption and even destruction of human life on earth, it is important to gauge the effect that this event has had on the public perception. The media as a conduit of popular perception is also means of shaping public…

Waltz With ashir (Vals Im ashir) is a 2008 Israeli animated autobiographical docudrama by Ari Folman that is based on his experiences as a soldier during the First Lebanon War in 1982. The film is directed, written, and produced by Ari Folman, who also stars in the film as himself (Folman, 2008; IMD, n.d.). With a budget of approximately $1.5 million, the film has grossed approximately $2.1 million (Rotten Tomatoes, n.d.; IMD, n.d.)
Waltz with ashir (2008) had its world premiere at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival on May 15, 2008. Following its premiere, Waltz With ashir (2008) embarked on a worldwide film festival campaign. Waltz with ashir (2008) was screened at the Annecy Animation Festival (6/9/2008) in France; Filmfest Munchen (6/20/2008-6/28/2008) in Germany, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (7/4/2008-7/12/2008) in the Czech Republic; Auckland International Film Festival (7/10/2008-7/27/2008) in New Zealand; Puchon International Film Festival (7/18/2008-7/27/2008) in South Korea; Palic…

Country combines a coming of age story with personal insights into the psychological effects of war. Haunted by her father's and uncle's experiences in Vietnam, seventeen-year-old Sam Hughes continually seeks to understand and to make real the facts surrounding her father's death. Set during the crucial summer after high school graduation, Bobbie Ann Mason's novel traces the development of its protagonist over a relatively short period of time, but offers great character insight. As her nickname suggests, Sam is a tomboyish, spunky teen who both acts and feels older than her chronological age. One of her closest friends and confidants is her veteran uncle, who she suspects suffers from Agent Orange. Sam's concerns about Emmett's health border on the obsessive, but her attempts to unearth the past equal a deeper investigation into her father. Because he died before she was born, and not much older than Sam herself, Dwayne…

ar Films
Taking Jeanine Basinger at her word would leave us with far fewer war films than we think we have. Basinger is a 'strict constructionist,' accepting as war films only those that have actual scenes of warfare (Curley and etta, 1992. p. 8; Kinney, 2001, p. 21). That means that the four films that will be considered here, and especially the two orld ar II films, are not war films. By Basinger's yardstick, neither Casablanca nor Notorious, neither Born on the Fourth of July nor Coming Home would qualify as war films.

On the other hand, films such as hite Christmas, a lightweight Bing Crosby-Danny Kaye-Rosemary Clooney-Vera Ellen comedy about the aftermath of war for an old soldier might well be a 'war' movie. The opening scene is one in which the old soldier, Dean Jagger, is reviewing his troops when, somewhere in Italy during the Christmas lull, bombs are lobbed…

This dance was very powerful as it did scare the European people. They did not fully understand the reason behind the dance and the religion, but they were very clear as to what the apocalypse was and they wondered if the Indians were somehow summoning the end of the world. Not soon after this Ghost dance caused such a commotion, an Indian by the name of Handsome Lake who was a leader for the Seneca tribe brought a new message to the Iroquois people. His message was to end the drinking. The Iroquois people had began to drink a lot of alcohol that was often offered to them from the European people during the fur trade. Handsome Lake believed that many of the problems that the Iroquois people faced was related to the alcohol. Many of the Indian people were drunk when they were trying to handle problems of…

In the opinion of Strong, DeVault and Cohen (2010), when it comes to issues marriage, opposites do not often attract. Instead, partners tend to seek each other out on the basis of shared characteristics. It is these shared characteristics that allow couples to foster greater understanding as well as empathy while facilitating or enhancing communication. Hence in that regard, a disconnect of sorts between the personality of couples may be taken to be an indicator of marital failure. Further, still on personality factors, Strong, DeVault and Cohen (2010) note that a clear example of a disconnect between the personality of marriage partners may be evident where one partner has a highly rigid personality. Such a personality may in addition to frustrating conflict resolution also end up clouding negotiations. Similarly, a partner who has a dominating personality may not be willing to cede some level of control so as to…

role of Islam as a unifying force
Perhaps more than any other religion in the world, Islam has put to work its less obvious sense in order to unify the peoples sharing the same belief. Through its art, its common language and its judicial system that has the Koran teachings at its base, Islam was a unifying force among the Arabic peoples of the Arabic Peninsula, Northern Africa and the Middle East.

There is a short discussion I would like to address here and that is to identify the differences between culture and civilization. This will help us see how religion LO is included in this set of concepts. From my point-of-view, religion LO can be considered an element of civilization through its cultural component. If we exclude Marxist ideology that argue that civilization is but a certain level that culture has attained and make no distinction between the two, when…

The benefits of the Internet as an information dissemination medium are manifold, but that does not mean that true, classical criticism has lost its value. Indeed, despite the cutbacks at newspapers, classic criticism is more vital than ever. "Critics are soldiers in the on-going culture war," cott contends, inferring that the role critics play is often greater than the act of writing a review. The way people think and view the world is often shaped by criticism. When the standards of criticism are compromised, as happens when editorial control is lost, then the influence on the way people think can become negative.

cott's argument was not lost on the generally older crowd in attendance at the Carlos Museum. The Academy itself plays an important role, along with critics, in defining the elements of popular culture that have the most value. While the public has flocked to see sci-fi eyepopper Avatar in…

Gnostics believed that they belonged to the "true church" of an elect few who were worthy; the orthodox Christians would not be saved because they were blind to the truth.
Part E -- Content - if we then combine the historical outline of the "reason" for John's writings with the overall message, we can conclude that there are at least five major paradigms present that are important in a contextual analysis of John.

John 5:13 - I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This seems to point that John saw a clear difference between those who believed in Jesus as the Son of God, but were unsure about eternal life. However, if we look back at other parts of his Gospel, we do find repetition of this theme. In John 1:5-7, for…

Daniel 9:24-27
An Exegesis of Daniel 9:24-27

Various approaches to Daniel 9:24-27 reveal a iblical prophecy that divides iblical scholars upon the matter of exact meaning. The most common understanding from the days of early Christianity to modern times has been that the text is one that prophecies the coming of Christ; but other interpretations, like the eschatological interpretation, view the prophecy as one that concerns the end times. This paper will show how a synthesis of the traditional interpretation and the eschatological interpretation provides what may be called a fuller, or perhaps more complete, view of Daniel 9:24-27.

As Francis Gigot notes, "linguistics, the context, and the ancient translations of Daniel are most of the time insufficient guides towards the sure restoration of the primitive reading"; however, exegetes are able to form a limited idea of a possible meaning to Daniel 9:24-27 by familiarizing themselves with the ook of Daniel as a…

Aryan Nation -- Racism
The Aryan Nations (AN, aka Church of Jesus Christ Christian) is a Christian Identity-based hate group that was prominent in the 1980's with roots dating back to the 1940's and includes neo-Nazi, skinhead, Ku Klux Klan (KKK), white supremacist, and militia groups, many of which congregated and networked at the AN compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho (Lambert, 2011). The group worked to unite different groups that had a common denominator of believing in white supremacy relative to other races. The group had some success in organizing and one splinter group had actually stole four million dollars with the hopes of overthrowing the United States government. This analysis will look at the origins of the group, it's activities that the groups engaged in a the peak of their momentum, and the reasons and factors that represent the groups steady decline from this peak.

ackground

The roots of the AN movement…

In fact, sexual moral obligations were one of the major concerns addressed by Jude, who cautioned that immoral behavior by teachers was dangerous. He believed that it had the ability to corrupt everyday Christians, and to keep them from attaining salvation. Therefore, he wrote Jude as a way of warning Christians against these false prophets, and against a life of immoral behavior.
Perhaps more significantly, Jude contains a very strong pro-evangelical message, because it encourages Christians to live their religions, making religion a part of daily life. For Jews who lived under religious laws, Judaism was necessarily part of daily life. Every single meal was dictated by religious facets. Moreover, religious law dictated choice of spouse, the ability to marry or divorce, the naming of children, and other facets of daily life. hen Jesus freed Jews of their obligations under Jewish laws, it had the impact of making religion less…

Many believe that this judgment takes place within a person's lifetime through sufferings for acts committed, and one does not have to wait for the end of time. The basic belief of Christianity is that there is a Christian God, who is benevolent and giving, but who is also a vengeful God. In fact, a large part of Pilgrim theology was premised on God being vengeful, and that self sacrifices were needed to appease God. Christians also believe that Christ was the son of God, who came to fulfill the Messianic prophecy espoused by sages from the Old Testament. Goodness, kindness, good deeds, generosity, honesty are divinely inspired. Christians keep Christ as a cherished beacon to be emulated every step of the way. Good deeds (which would satisfy uddhists) without true faith is meaningless.
The uddhists have an assigned eight-step path to enlightenment. These are not far removed from any…

If feminism is about civil rights, human rights, children's rights and the search for peace, then it is clear that a substantial amount of the descriptive narrative in the Road is clearly anti-feminine. This has nothing to do with gender rights, and everything to do with the rights of all humans to live in dignity and be allowed "...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The nights, McCarthy writes on page 129, were "...blinding cold and casket black and the long reach of the morning had a terrible silence to it. Like a dawn before battle." The feminist world is not a cold world at all and children are sheltered from suffering; death is not supposed to come to young and middle aged people and mornings are not silent. Mornings are supposed to be filled with the joyful sound of songbirds and the happy shrieks of children, and there is…

She also mentions the huge energy giant British Petroleum (BP) came up with some honest and effective marketing in its green promotions. And while it is laudable for an oil company to invest in green technologies, BP did it with "appropriate humility that admits its own guilt while setting the stage for conversion to alternative energy sources" (Ottman, 2002). Meantime she says to Exxon, "ake Up!" because Exxon was at that time running "green-themed" ads that spoke to the need to "find more oil."

In still another green marketing-themed article from Ottman, she writes in the publication in Business that while the George . Bush Administration "abdicates responsibility for a strong response to slowing down" global climate change, Bush's lack of leadership on the issue opened a "unique window of opportunity for America's advertisers and marketers" (Ottman, 2002). That advice to advertisers and marketers is this: using the same effective communication…

His exorcism begins in the return to Vietnam and his final view of the doomed war. As he was first in, he is among the last out as the North Vietnamese take Saigon.
The postscript was published in 1996 and details some of the anxieties Caputo experienced while writing the memoir and the difficulties he had handling his fame and notoriety after its publication. The author on his experiences that, "My mind shot back a decade, to that day we had marched into Vietnam, swaggering, confident, and full of idealism. e had believed we were there for a high moral purpose. But somehow our idealism was lost, our morals corrupted, and the purpose forgotten (ibid., p. 345)." This is a profound change in his perception of the war when he first came to Vietnam in 1965.

The moral conflict plays through the entire book. The personal choice for him was reporting…

Economic Concens in Film
Metopolis, Invasion of the Body Snatches and La Jetee span fou decades, although the latte two could be consideed examples of Cold Wa science fiction. Metopolis was set duing the Weima Republic, although cetain scenes wee eeily pophetic of Nazism, but in eality the city itself could also have been New Yok o any othe uban cente of the futue. Fo diecto Fitz Lang, the city was a symbol of Fodist mass poduction and mass consumption, with the wokes down below butalized by povety, hunge and dull, outine, obot-like jobs, while at the same time, the middle and uppe classes above wee also dehumanized by mindless hedonism and nihilism, o dull, confomist cleical and administative wold. Dehumanization was also a majo theme of La Jetee, in which the suvivos of a nuclea holocaust live undegound, lacking even the basic necessities of food, wate and medical cae,…

Revelation 20:1-6 describes the "thousand years" in which Satan is imprisoned and the martyrs for Christ are resurrected and placed upon thrones to judge and reign with Christ for a thousand years. The passage also makes reference to a "first resurrection" implying that there will be a second. Yet, because of the nature of the Scriptural verses is visionary and imagistic, they have been the source of contentious interpretations over the years. Do the verses refer to a time that is yet to come (premillennial) or a time that we are already in (postmillennial) or to no real time at all but rather to only a figurative sense of the spiritual dimensions of the Christian way to heaven (amillennial)?
Poythress states that Rev 20:1-6 contains several different "levels of communication" -- the linguistic, the visionary, the referential, and the symbolic.

Each of these levels offers a unique way of looking at Revelation…

For comprehensively understanding the meaning of Jesus's message to this specific church, it is necessary to first know and comprehend the church, together with its culture. This book's writer is a messenger from the divine who has taken it upon himself to convey a serious message from Christ. Although the book is directly targeted at the First Century Laodicean church, the advices therein may be applied to Christians in all eras[footnoteRef:1]. The work's literary examination reveals that this church's moral nature apparently reflects its socioeconomic context. That all distinguishing aspects of the city contradict the church symbolizes failure, and not success. [1: Gary Cohen, Understanding Revelation]
Socio-historical context

The city of Laodicea was proud of its affluence among all 7 cities, and famous for its exquisite manufactured clothing of local black wool and a medical institute that made an eye-curing salve. Its affluence and pride may be seen from its refusal to…

"Forecasts by Moody's Economy.com now use a 20 percent drop in median
existing-home prices from their 2005 peak as a baseline, with prices
weakening through at least mid-2009" (Shinkle, 2008, p. 44). Moody's
director of housing economics Celia Chen, states in the same report that
the 20% decline is the good news and that the bad news is that it could
easily be more than that. The worst-case scenario is a lot more than that.
"You want the darkest? Forty percent, she says. There's your apocalypse"
(Shinkle, p. 45).
Websites that track foreclosures indicate that "the US-wide total of
loans foreclosing was running at 2.5 million in 2007, up by 70% from about
1.5 million in 2006" (Dumas, 2008, p. 23). The problem is that the teaser
rates that were initially set in 2006 will reach their peak in 2008,
ultimately affecting another approximate 1.5 million mortgages, with
another round in 2009. The spring 2009 cumulative total of over 4 million
foreclosures is a…

A favorite target for conspiracists today as well as in the past, a group of European intellectuals created the Order of the Illuminati in May 1776, in Bavaria, Germany, under the leadership of Adam Weishaupt (Atkins, 2002). In this regard, Stewart (2002) reports that, "The 'great' conspiracy organized in the last half of the eighteenth century through the efforts of a number of secret societies that were striving for a 'new order' of civilization to be governed by a small group of 'all-powerful rulers.' The most important of these societies, and the one to which all subsequent conspiracies could be traced, is the Illuminati founded in Bavaria on May 1, 1776 by Adam Weishaupt" (p. 424). According to Atkins, it was Weishaupt's fundamental and overriding goal to form a secret organization of elite members of Europe's leading citizens who could then strive to achieve the Enlightenment version of revolutionary…

Post-Impressionist artists were interested in the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in his concept of the Ubermensch, a superman who would be capable through intense struggle of surmounting the lower forces that would limit his ability to achieve. The idea that man could evolve beyond his present capacities influenced the relationship of European man to previous cultures and to contemporary but less "civilized" societies. This paper explores the ways in which Paul Gauguin applied the Ubermensch concept to his art and to his life, and examines parallel motifs in the oeuvres of his contemporaries.
The Artist Gauguin: Man, Nature, Ubermensch and God

At the beginning of the enaissance, Massacio painted The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, and initiated a new view of humanity: an intensely personal and emotionalized struggle against fate. In spite of the Neo-Classical return to the formal norms of the past, the human agony…

Journal of Albrecht Durer, 1498
I, Albrecht Durer, will preserve what I feel today in indelible colors. I stand pompous, extravagantly dressed, back to where I have always belonged. I may seem ostentatious now, with the artistic splendor I am bestowed with, more refined. Yet it was at Venice where I found inner tranquility of being an artist. I shall paint now as my imaginations will sweep with the aura of nature around me and my skills shall gain more strength. I will rejoice today to celebrate the liberty of an artist that I had experienced in Italian culture with the hope to awaken same liberation amongst natives of my land. I shall portray myself to depict the worth of a piece of art, the spectacle that a mere smear of color on canvas could create.

I may seem imprudent to Nuremberg for here I stand now almost 26, still lost in…

Cold War and Film
Generally speaking, the Cold War has been depicted as an era of spy games and paranoia in popular films from the 1960s to the present day, but the reality of the era was much more complex. The Cold War was a period of military and political tension from 1947 to 1991, or from the end of WW2 to the collapse of the Soviet Union, in which the "politics of war" masked the business and social agendas of multinationals and ideologues. The era was marked by myriad issues: East-West mistrust, proxy wars, espionage, the threat of nuclear war, domestic and foreign propaganda, the rise of the military-industrial complex and multinational corporations, assassinations, detente, de-colonization, new nationalism, neo-colonialism, the vying for control of resources, alliances (NATO, Warsaw Pact), and an inculcation of the "deep state." [footnoteRef:1] It can be divided into five basic periods: 1947-53, 1953-62, 1962-79, 1979-85,…

This first collection of poetry relates of these experiences of dislocation, refuge and identity crisis, as Abinader, one of the reviewers of Handal's work, points out: "Nathalie Handal's new collection of poetry, the Lives of Rain, places us in gritty scenes of exile, occupation, dislocation, refuge, and solitude -- scenes that are often associated with poets of Palestinian background."(Abinader, 256) These themes are obviously common with Palestinian poets due to the fact that they generally experience violence and political conflict more closely and therefore more poignantly. As Abinader emphasizes, the people who are depicted in Handal's poems are invariably the victims of history itself and the pressure it puts on the individual: "Handal's heroes are the survivors not only of war but of the mutability of time and the volatility of history."(Abinader, 256) One of the very significant poems in this collection is Gaza City, a text which describes…

Thomas Aquinas led the move away from the Platonic and Augustinian and toward Aristotelianism and "developed a philosophy of mind by writing that the mind was at birth a tabula rasa ('blank slate') that was given the ability to think and recognize forms or ideas through a divine spark" (Haskins viii). y 1200 there were reasonably accurate Latin translations of the main works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy, Archimedes, and Galen, that is, of all the intellectually crucial ancient authors except Plato. Also, many of the medieval Arabic and Jewish key texts, such as the main works of Avicenna, Averroes and Maimonides now became available in Latin. During the 13th Century, scholastics expanded the natural philosophy of these texts by commentaries and independent treatises. Notable among these were the works of Robert Grosseteste, Roger acon, John of Sacrobosco, Albertus Magnus, and Duns Scotus. Precursors of the modern scientific method can…

Genre theory offers a useful means of classifying films according to their tropes and conventions. Although films constructed purposely to fit into a specific genre can be criticized for being overly commercial, genre theory does reveal how American audiences do react favorably towards familiar themes, actors, directorial styles, plots, and imagery (“Movie Genres”). Moreover, genres reveal the power of archetypes in storytelling. Even when a film does not fit neatly within one and only one genre, or when a film straddles many genres at once, the plot and characterization may still reveal familiar themes. Fantasy can be considered a universal genre in that all cultures have a collective body of myths and storytelling about superhuman or otherworldly creatures. Therefore, fantasy films are about much more than escapism. Fantasy is a genre that offers filmmakers and audiences alike a great degree of flexibility in terms of symbols and motifs. Audiences are…

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Moreover, Malachi Martin describes the theology as "a freeing from political oppression, economic want, and misery here on earth. More specifically still…a freeing from political domination by the capitalism of the United States."

Furthermore, though it grew out of the unrest in Latin America "with its political domination by strong-arm leaders and monopolistic oligarchies," viewed by members of the Church as a direct result of American capitalism, the events in Latin America were preceded by a much more basic historical development -- the "rights of man" extrapolated from the French Revolution and re-coined as the "rights of the working man."

The spread of Marxist doctrine in the early twentieth century saw its incorporation into Catholic theology by several prominent professors right up to the time of the Second Vatican Council, upon which Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz certainly based her theology, and pursued her concept of "evangelical poverty": union with the poor as a…

Ethiopian Jews
Interesting story of Ethiopian Jews has caught attention of many. Ethiopia has been facing many issues in the early years. Ethiopians always had to struggle to obtain the basic necessity of life such as food and general hygienic resources such as a proper sewerage system etc. Though the country struggles through many problems it holds a very fascinating history. Ethiopia has a historical background which relates to all three Abrahamic religions. It has significant history for all of the three religions. For instance, it was the first to declare Christianity as a state religion in the 4th Century. In addition to that it was also first place of hijra according to Islamic history and it is known to be one of the most ancient Muslim settlements in Africa. Moreover, it also held a legit population of Ethiopian Jews up till 1980s. Being rich with the varies religion backgrounds Ethiopia…

Dead Sea Scrolls
Hershell Hanks begins his book "The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls," (Shanks, 1998) with a startling revelation. Despite numerous treatises, articles and books on the subject, it is still unclear who found The Dead Sea Scrolls. An Arab shepherd boy or maybe two shepherd boys searching for their lost sheep close to the banks of the Dead Sea discovered the 'Scrolls' in 1947 in a cave in Qumran -- though the date varies depending on the source. In an effort to look for the lost sheep, the edouin shepherd began throwing stones into nearby caves. An unexpected cracking sound of earthenware inside the cave encouraged him to explore further. Muhammad Ahmad el-Hamed of the Ta'amireh tribe is assumed to be the shepherd who found the scrolls. This fact has however been constantly debated and interviewing and identifying the right individual who found the scroll was…

Economic Crisis
The recession of 2008-2009 and the subsequent government responses provides a good test for economic theories. There are no controlled experiments in economics, so we can only work with case studies in order to understand how economies work. A good starting point is to consider the issue through multiple different lenses, so that we can understand how the crisis occurred and what prescriptions might be best suited for response either to address the root problems or to engage in prevention. This paper will consider the works of Marx, Schumpeter and Keynes in analyzing the financial crisis. All three of these men would have been able to understand its causes, but likely would have taken very different approaches to solving the problem.

The second issue at hand is the question of the future of capitalism. We have a pretty good sense at this point of what the response of government is…

If Chief Justice Hughes and his five aged associates had chosen to remain, the membership of the court would have been enlarged from nine to fifteen" (Pusey 1995).
A small group of constitutional lawyers advised Roosevelt in the construction of the bill, assuring him that the Democratic majority in both Houses of Congress would pass it. hen Roosevelt introduced the bill, Roosevelt used the euphemism of judicial 'reform' rather than said it was an attempt to circumvent the recent rulings of the Supreme Court. He framed his plan as a way of relieving the pressures of overcrowded court dockets. However, some of the phrases he used made his feelings clear, namely his reference to the problems of lifetime appointments, or "aged or infirm judges," (Menaker 2008).

hen he spoke of justices of advanced ages, the President was obviously speaking of his opponents on the Court, the so-called anti-government Four Horsemen of…

Nuclear weapons became a tool of American policy that goes far beyond protection of national interests, for American national interests depend on the propagation of American ideals. The United States is, in the words of Harold Lasswell, a "garrison state;" a crusading nation that seeks to combat all enemies real and imagined and to remake the world in its own image. (Flint 86-87) Under the new doctrine, nuclear strategy becomes a means of enforcing an ideology - all dissent, or supposed dissent, is rooted out through the threat of ultimate and complete destruction. Terrorism is made the defining characteristic of immorality. States that support terrorism become the ultimate evildoers. The Bush Administration redefined international relations in terms of an axis of good led by the United States and its allies, and an axis of evil consisting preeminently of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea and their terrorist associates. Alone among these…

Ellen White claimed that the date Miller predicted as the absolute Advent of Christ did not set the time for the physical appearance of Christ. ather, the prediction merely referred to the commencement of a period of divine judgement in which all souls would be pre-judged in heaven in preparation for the actual Advent of Christ. Seventh-Day Adventists believe that Investigative Judgement has been occurring since the 1840s and that by the time Christ appears all humans will have their fate sealed. The Seventh-Day Adventist Church points to Old Testament scripture to substantiate the belief in Investigative Judgement (obinson 2007). Seventh-Day Adventists also believe that during the period of Investigative Judgement, the Earth is being gradually purged of all sin. Satan reigns on earth now, and after the Advent of Christ only the righteous will be resurrected and reborn on the newly purified planet (obinson 2007). Only Christians who…

1985) held that municipal ordinance prohibiting fortune-telling and any related activity were in violation of Cal. Const. art. I, 2; while arrests for fortune-telling are now less frequent in California than before Azusa, they still occur. For example, in San Diego, four women belonging to the same Gypsy family were recently charged with theft by false pretense; as a precondition of being offered bail, these psychics were prohibited from engaging in fortune-telling or from being in locations of psychic activities (Weyrauch, 2001).
Certainly, there has been much skepticism concerning the reality of paranormal powers since antiquity. A number of "natural philosophers," people that would eventually be known as scientists when more organized systems of thought came into existence, disproved such claims several centuries ago (andi, 1982). For example, in 1692, a French dowsing practitioner by the name of Jacques Aymar was hired by municipal authorities to discover a murderer by…

Admittedly, these two teams were faced with a daunting challenge in acquiring and interpreting those works of art that were most appropriate for their exhibition goals, and interpretive efforts must use some framework in which to present the resources in a fashion that can be understood and appreciated by the targeted audiences.
Nevertheless, there is little or no discussion concerning the fusion of artistic styles in the two catalogs, with a preference for a neat and orderly, date by date, presentation of representative works that typify the points being made by the exhibition. Despite these shortcomings, both catalogs were shown to be authoritative references that were supported by relevant citations and imagery. Likewise, both catalogs provide useful overviews of the materials that are being presented preparatory to their interpretation, helping place the information in its historical context.

Conclusion

The research showed that interest and appreciation in colonial Latin American art has experienced…

Hitler's Personality And Rise To Power
Adolph Hitler's rise to power over the course of the 1920s and 30s was due to a confluence of political and personal factors which served to make Hitler the ideal person to take control of Germany's failing fortunes. In many ways one may view Hitler's frightening success as a case of being the right person, in the right place, at the right time, because his peculiar personality was an almost perfect match for the disillusioned Germans suffering from the ignominy and economic disaster which followed their defeat in the first orld ar. Numerous researchers have attempted to diagnose Hitler's personality in psychological or psychiatric terms, and while these studies some useful insights, this study will focus more on Hitler's personality as it relates to his audience, because regardless of the specific neuroses Hitler exhibited, the image he cultivated in the minds of Germans and some…

..This perspective is from the U.S.A.; in Europe, violence in school and the concern about violence may not be at similar levels, but it is undoubtedly a topic of major concern (Smith, 2003, p. 1).
This article also makes the important point that school is intended as a developmental and educational environment and that violence in its various forms negatively effects and detracts from the goals of education.

Another general work that adds to the underlying body of knowledge on this topic is Stealing the Show? Crime and Its Impact in Post-Apartheid South Africa by Mark Shaw and Peter Gastrow (2001). Among others, this study makes a cogent assessment of the way that crime and violence is measured and reported in South Africa.

Most researchers assume that official crime statistics -- that is, those collected and released by the South African Police Service -- provide a poor indication of levels of crime in…

2004 case of Missouri v. eibert that was appealed to the U.. upreme Court to generate a new rule prohibiting a specific practice often used by, and taught to police officers. That technique involved a two-tiered interrogation strategy expressly designed and intended to circumvent the Fifth Amendment constitutional protections guaranteed by the Miranda rule. The way the strategy worked was that police would deliberately delay reading Miranda warnings to question suspects for the purpose of acquiring information about their culpable conduct. Afterwards, they would Mirandize the same subject and then re-open the discussion, referencing that information. The suspects invariably made admissions of guilt after being Mirandized because they knew they had already provided the information and were unaware of the legal distinction of statements "inside" and "outside" of Miranda warnings.
The first admission is absolutely inadmissible. At the time it was made, the suspect was already participating in a custodial…

Toulmin Model argument in response to one of the following prompts:
• What specific action(s) should Christians take regarding the environment and its preservation or restoration?

Active in 15 countries, "Target Earth" is a group of individuals, churches, college fellowship and various ministries that are Christian protectors for everything that God created. The group feeds the hungry, saves endangered animals, rebuilds forests, and serves as active voice for environmental concerns. The groups mission is "erving the Earth, erving the Poor," which defines their connection of Christianity to environmentalism as they see it (Target Earth.com).

The news media is full of warnings that deal with environmental issues of one kind or the other be it global warming, endangered species, extinction of the rain forest, pollution, nuclear accidents, and so forth. The Christian community seems to apply less attention to these issues than they do to others. It may be because we regard these…

Bright Knots of Apparitions: Transcending Reality in Fascicle Sixteen
In the early eighteen sixties, many Americans were concerned with the national fracture that manifested itself in the Civil ar. Northerners, galvanized by the Compromise of 1850, which held them punishable by law for aiding escaped slaves, had come to realize that this conflict involved all Americans. The nation seethed with factionalism and looked outward for direct and active solutions to a moral crisis.

Emily Dickinson, as far as her biographers can determine, seemed unaware of or unconcerned with the national conflict. Instead, in the same time period, she would experience a tremendous period of artistic production, writing three hundred sixty-six poems in 1862 alone, a six-fold increase over her output in 1858. Eleven of her 1861-1862 poems she would bind in the little hand-sewn bundles she kept in a box under her bed; this collection of terse, conflicted lines is now called…

Compensation Plan
Brief Overview of Costco's Compensation System

Costco has a unique compensation system within its industry. The company competes as a cost leader, where it features low prices as a means of winning business. Cost leaders typically try to have rock bottom costs throughout their operations, from the supply chain to labor and everywhere in between. These competitors will use their bargaining power to get the cheapest labor possible, bargaining down wages, benefits and other perks. This often results in a poor quality labor pool with high levels of turnover, but these companies accept that as part of having a low cost labor pool and account for that is the design of the low cost business model (Lutz, 2013).

The approach that the company has to compensation is therefore counterintuitive to the way that most of its competitors run their human resources, but there is internal logic to Costco's system. Costco is…

Theology: evelation and John
evelation and John: Theology

A lot of debate and controversy surrounds the proper interpretation of the Book of evelation. There are four main interpretations of the apocalyptic work, with the four differing on the question of whether the events in evelation have already been fulfilled, and whether the symbols relate to any historical events (Pate, 2009). We discuss three of these interpretations:

The Idealist View

the book of evelation does not relate to any historical events; it only symbolizes the ongoing struggle between evil and good (Kreider, 2004)

Symbols not tied to specific events, but point to themes in the history of the church - the battles represent the spiritual warfare manifested in wars and the persecution of Christians; the catastrophes represent God's displeasure with man's sinful nature and a manifestation of how God emerges victorious in the end; the trumpets represent natural disasters occurring as God works out His plan…