Stanley Kubrick: Artist, Explorer and Pioneer Essay -- Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick: Artist, Explorer and Pioneer Introduction The line between art and entertainment has become malleable in the last century. Critics of fine art define its quality by its message, innovation and complexity. Both are founded on intent to communicate. Art seeks to engage the viewer and generally attempts to tap into more complicated and rarer emotions. (Krush Web Site) Stanley Kubrick uses the medium of film to convey an understanding of the world around him. I see his work as art rather than entertainment and I propose his inclusion in Howard Gardner’s model of Multiple Intelligences. The basis of my argument lies in analysis of his work ethic, complexities, innovations and communication skills. Background Stanley Kubrick was born on July 26th, 1928. The Bronx New York was both his birthplace and childhood home. While there he had a relatively uneventful adolescence. His typical nuclear family was of Jewish faith and consisted of a sister, Barbara, six years his younger, a mother, Gertrude, and a father, Jakob. His father was a doctor and instrumental in building the path Kubrick would later follow. His performance in academics was far from spectacular. Kubrick left high school without graduating at 17. His cumulative average was a 67. While in school, Physics was the only subject in which he excelled (his love of machines and movement are apparent in his later endeavors). But the time he spent in William Howard Taft High School was far from fruitless. On his 13th birthday he received a camera from his father. This led to a love of photography – he was the official photographer for the school and was even exhibited. At an early age Stanley had an eye for composition, subjects and themes. It was o... ... an audience and those luck enough to work with him, is hidden in the complexities of his work. Although he has touched some of the established genres of film, his style is all his own. His movies continually arouse critical analysis and raise questions about the state of humankind. Stanley Kubrick’s gifts to society will be remembered as frighteningly truthful and creative. Works Cited: Ciment, Michel. Kubrick. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York. 1980. DeVries, Daniel. Film of Stanley Kubrick. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids. 1973. Gardner, Howard. Creating Minds. Basic Books: A Division of Harber Collins Publishers, New York. 1993. Nelson, Thomas Allen. Kubrick: Inside a Film ArtistUs Maze. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. 1982. Walker, Alexander. Stanley Kubrick Directs. Harcourt Brace Jovanovick, Inc, New York. 1971.

Huckleberry Finn :: essays research papers

Huckleberry Finn Essay   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by: Mark Twain there are two major symbols. One of those symbols is the Mississippi River and the other is the Village in which Huck lives. The two symbols represent freedom and rules respectively.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Village is a symbol of rules and the law. This symbol is very obvious when Huck is living with the Widow Douglas and Miss Watson. For instance, Huck asked if he could go out and have a smoke and the Widow Douglas said â€Å"†¦it was a mean practice and wasn’t clean†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Twain 2). This restriction was not the only one. The Widow Douglas’s sister Miss Watson would keep â€Å"pecking at him† (Twain 3) and telling him â€Å"don’t scrunch up like that Huckleberry—set up straight.† and when he did that she would say â€Å"Don’t gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry—why don’t you try to behave?† (Twain 2). The Widow Douglas also made Huck go to school and read the Bible, both things he did not want to do. Huck was being pushed into religion and was being corrected and told what he was doing was wrong constantly. Huck needed some freedom, which he found on the river.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The Mississippi River is a symbol of freedom to both Huck and Jim. Huck escapes from the widow’s house and gets to do whatever he wanted when he wanted. For instance, Huck could pull out his pipe and smoke all he wanted. When the ferry boat came to look for him, he â€Å"lit a pipe and had a good long smoke† (Twain 38). For Jim, the river means a new chance at life. A life without being a slave and not taking orders and doing whatever he is told. Jim wants to do whatever he wants to do. The river also gives Jim a chance to get to Cairo and earn some money. He needs to earn the money so he can buy his wife and daughter from The Widow Douglas. If she will not sell his wife and daughter back to him then he plans to go and steal them back. Then Jim will actually be able to enjoy his freedom with his family.

James Baldwins Stranger in the Village Essay -- James Baldwin Strange

James Baldwin's Stranger in the Village In paragraph three of James Baldwin's 'Stranger in the Village' (1955), he alludes to emotions that are significant, dealing with conflicts that arise in the Swiss village. Of these emotions are two, astonishment and outrage, which represent the relevant feelings of Baldwin, an American black man. These two emotions, for Baldwin's ancestors, create arguments about the 'Negro' and their rights to be considered 'human beings' (Baldwin 131). Baldwin, an American Negro, feels undeniable rage toward the village because of the misconception of his complexion, a misconception that denies Baldwin human credibility and allows him to be perceived as a 'living wonder' (129). Baldwin and his ancestors share this common rage because of the reflections their culture has had on the rest of society, a society consisting of white men who have thrived on using false impressions as a weapon throughout American history. Baldwin gives credit to the fact that no one can be held responsible for what history has unfolded, but he remains restless for an explanation about the perception of his ancestors as people. In Baldwin?s essay, his rage becomes more directed as the ?power of the white man? becomes relevant to the misfortune of the American Negro (Baldwin 131). This misfortune creates a fire of rage within Baldwin and the American Negro. As Baldwin?s American Negro continues to build the fire, the white man builds an invisible wall around himself to avoid confrontation about the actions of his ?forefathers? (Baldwin 131). Baldwin?s anger burns through his other emotions as he writes about the enslavement of his ancestors and gives the reader a shameful illusi on of a Negro slave having to explai... ...as a reader I must understand that his opinions are supported by his true, raw emotions. These negative feelings shared by all of his ancestors were too strong to just pass by as meaningless emotions. Baldwin created an outlook simply from his honest views on racial issues of his time, and ours. Baldwin?s essay puts the white American to shame simply by stating what he perceived as truth. Baldwin isn?t searching for sympathy by discussing his emotions, nor is he looking for an apology. I feel that he is pointing out the errors in Americans? thinking and probably saying, ?Look at what you people have to live with, if and when you come back to the reality of ?our? world.? Work Cited Baldwin, James. ?Strange in the Village.? Inventing America: Readings in Identity and Culture. Ed. Gabriella Ibieta and Miles Orvell. New York: St. Martins, 196. 126-35.

Is the war on terror

The delight in comparing the historical accuracy of Arthur Miller’s play to the real events of the Salem Witch Trials and the Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950s comes from both the time at which the play was published and the historical parallels between the two times in American history. Furthermore, the play holds value as an attempt to explain unexplainable behavior and to teach lessons from the history in the hopes that they will not be repeated. It is a sad lament that the lesson remains unlearned and fifty years later we are faced with another American witch trial, this time under the name â€Å"War on Terror.†In short summation, â€Å"The Crucible† is a play ostensibly about the Salem Witch trials. In it, a preacher’s daughter falls ill after dancing in the woods with a slave and some of the other village teen agers. Her father calls in assistance from more world church investigators to find the root of the witchcraft that has left his daughter ill. A fter he threatens to whip the slave to death, she confesses to witchcraft and seeks to take blame away from herself by pointing the finger at other Salem citizens.Eventually, the finger is pointed at a married woman, Elizabeth Proctor, by her former maid Abigail who had been having an affair with the woman’s husband John. Her accusations are at first doubted because John admits to the affair and shows that Abigail is attempting to tarnish his wife’s reputation or indeed mess up his life, but Elizabeth, thinking she is protecting her husband, refuses to admit to knowing about the affair. She is eventually found guilty of witchcraft and spared the gallows because she is pregnant, but in the same misguided desire to spare herself more torment, accuses under questioning that her husband is also a witch. At the end of the play, John Proctor is being led to the gallows for his crime.Is any of this real? Yes. Elizabeth Proctor was given a stay of execution because she was pre gnant and most of her family was executed during the Salem Witch Trials (Burns, 1). The pastor’s slave, a Caribbean Indian woman named Tituba was among the first accused and pointed the finger at her owner’s daughter and others in the community, but there is no historical evidence that John Proctor had an affair and the real Abigail was an 11 year old girl at the time of the trials (Burns, 1). So why did Arthur Miller chose to make it all up? Possibly to give reason to the unreasonable. Though the witch hunts in Salem lasted a relatively short period of time, they left an indelible mark on American history, a time when man turned against his wife and children and neighbors to avoid being killed.Miller, a victim of Joseph McCarthy’s â€Å"Red Scare’, understood the premise all too well. The origins of the Red scare are much easier to trace than the origin of the Salem Witch Hunts, but Miller clearly could see the parallels between the two. In a speech in Wheeling, West Virginia, in February, 1950, McCarthy made clear where his venom and hatred came from. â€Å"Five years after a world war has been won, men’s hearts should anticipate a long peace—and men’s minds should be free from the heavy weight that comes with war. But this is not such a period—for this is not a period of peace. This is a time of â€Å"the cold war.† This is a time when all the world is split into two vast, increasingly hostile armed camps—a time of a great armament race. â€Å"(â€Å"Enemies from Within†, 1).There is a term used in sociology to reflect the behavior, called identifying the â€Å"other†. The other is a person unlike ourselves who has some characteristic that makes them a threat to society as we know it. In the witch trials, it was witches. During the Red Scare, it was Communists. Today, it is anyone who appears Arabic or studies Islam and can therefore be deemed likely to be a terrorist.   Not having learned the lessons of history or of literature, after September 11, 2001, Americans were terrified and they turned to a new witch hunt, this time with the witches semi-identifiable by race.Too bad that you can tell an Arab-American who has lived her forever, or an Afghani refugee, or simply a hard-working Middle Easterner who has never considered the way of Al Qaida just by looking at them. Instead, we demonize a race and lock people up in Cuba at Guantanamo Naval Base on the suspicion that they might have knowledge about someone or something that might want to hurt us. The Patriot Act makes it an offense just to know people who might be associated with terrorism and encourages people to rat out their friends, with the same kind of threats that the preacher used on his slave Tituba.But this is not the first witch hunt since McCarthyism and is probably not the last. In fact, in many ways, Miller may have contributed to one of his own in the writing of â€Å"The Crucibl e†. In 1950s northern America, Communists were the enemy, but in the South, it was the uppity African-American wanting rights that he had been granted but not given after the Civil War. By making Tituba a Negro slave and implying that she practiced some form of voodoo, Miller may have contributed to this anti-African-American attitude (Hansen, 3).   By the 1970s, the witch hunt was against the American military and specifically those who had served in Vietnam, in the 1980s Reagan-era; it was those darned Communists again.The 1990s brought on a witch hunt in the Catholic Church, where suddenly every priest was assumed to be a pedophile and in 2001, Al Qaida made themselves into the witches of the new millennia.   At Guantanamo Bay, McCarthy’s famous question, â€Å"Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?† (Popkin, 139) has been revised. The quest now is to find the next threat to Americans and the next unidentified witch.Works Cite dBurns, Margo. â€Å"Arthur Miller’s The Crucible: Fact & Fiction (Or Picky, Picky, Picky†¦) October 24, 2003. , November 17, 2007.McCarthy, Joseph R. â€Å"Enemies from Within†, February 9, 1950. < http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6456>, November 17, 2007.Popkin, Henry. â€Å"Arthur Miller’s ‘The Crucible’†.College English > Vol. 26, No. 2 (Nov., 1964), pp. 139-146   Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/373665?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents, November 17, 2007.

The Elizabethan Era

By definition, a class is a group of people with a related social standing. There are often distinct differences between the classes, denoted by characteristics such as one†s wealth, education, career, and health. These principles applied for the Elizabethan Era as well. Elizabeth herself was a member of the upper class, while other fairly successful people belonged to the middle class. Peasants were the lowest ranked class, usually because they were unfortunate enough to either contract a disease that disabled them from work, or they were farmers that were stricken with poverty when a harvesting season went bad. The â€Å"upper class† consisted mainly of nobility and wealthy landowners. Those in this class generally handled governmental affairs. They also had their children brought up with an education in music, math, and history. It wasn†t rare for many of them to be literate in multiple foreign languages, as well as their own, such as Latin, English, French, and Spanish. Also, the men usually received a better education than the women. The men of nobility were taught extra skills such as horse riding, hunting, shooting, and hawking as well. Because of this class†s social statute and wealth, they were easily able to treat themselves to the best of the food available during their time, especially meaty foods. But because of the large consumption of meat with few vegetables, many eventually suffered from diseases such as scurvy, which is weakness of the bone. The dinnerware consisted of wooden plates, like those of the lower classes, but these were accompanied by other delicacies of the Elizabethan period, such as chairs, forks, and glasses. The favorite drink of all the classes was beer, although the upper class favored wine imported from French vineyards. One custom between the people of this class and the peasants was known as the giving of â€Å"alms† to the poor. This was were a wealthy person would contribute money and sometimes provide supplementary shelter to a less fortunate person. Although the upper class was a minority in Elizabethan times as it is now, it kept the thriving European kingdom alive. The second class of the Elizabethan Period was the â€Å"middle class†. This class usually consisted of merchants and some landowners, although the number of peasants who rose and fell between this class and the lower class varied depending on the health of the seasonal harvest. Those in this class lead a fairly peaceful, easygoing life, other than common household chores and visits to the local market. If possible, they would hire a servant to keep up with some of the household chores, such as the tedious task of clothes washing. They sent their children to a formal school if they could afford it. The parents were so intent for their children to learn the material that they encouraged teachers to beat them if they made mistakes or became lazy. The middle class often could not afford some of the things taken for granted by the upper class, such as chairs instead of stools, forks, glasses, and a large selection of meats. The middle class drove the economy of Britain through its trades with other European countries. The peasants made up the lower class. These people were either ill, lazy, became laborers, or were just turned a bad hand during the harvest season. The laborers and servants served long hours each day handling the least favorable jobs, such as field work and laundry. During bad seasons, as many as 25% could not afford food, and often the most they ever ate was bread. In many cases they turned to thievery, otherwise they would starve. Some were lucky enough to receive â€Å"alms† from the wealthy, but many didn†t, because of their great number. The upper class pitied the peasants that were ill or that couldn†t find work, so they created a system to care for them. If there were able men that were just lazy and rather beg on the streets, a Parish, or the person in charge of the system locally, would send them to a larger city were they would be whipped and then sent back and assigned a job. If a man was ill, then they would often try to take him in and give him enough food to survive on. Widows and their families were also treated in the same manner. In the end, when harvest was well, every class benefited, and it created especially good seasons for the poor, otherwise it was the peasants who suffered most. The classes of the Elizabethan Period established a society which became a model for many present-day cultures. Though not perfect, it still exists today, even in America to some degree. The upper class was the wealthiest and had the most power, while the middle class was mostly involved in trade, and the lower class made up the remainder who were often ill or widowed.

Benefits of Early Literacy Learning Essay

Education is a fundamental aspect of a person’s social, economic, and emotional developmental. Starting education early is therefore advantageous. Focusing specifically on early literacy; statistics prove that an early literary development can radically improve a child’s chance for a formidable career. Early literacy developmental practices have been taking place for many years now. Many different literacy programs offer statistical and other information to demonstrate the benefits of learning literacy early. In true effect of the experimental learning and teaching; the instructors keep detailed records of the lessons taught and the grade improvements of the students. The other side of the early literacy learning is to have a control group that they are teaching without the focus on early literacy, thus being able to generate a detailed analysis of the children’s improvements and success rate. One high quality literacy program released details about their program and the outcome of the program on their students. As stated by two authors, â€Å"Strengths in the overall program that services provided resided in†¦ literacy links across the curriculum and throughout the day. † (Arthur and Makin) In this same educational facility they had a record of which programs were the strongest and which programs did not demonstrate as well. â€Å"There were seven ECLLS [Early Childhood Language and Literacy Scale] items on which more than 50 per cent of the rooms observed received a high rating (six or seven out of a total seven). These were as follows: furniture for routine care, play and learning room; room arrangement for play; encouraging children to communicate; fine motor activities; staff-child interactions; and program schedule and grouping. † Depicting the importance of structured play times and environmental factors can have on learning. Also stating the â€Å"Four services received a high rating for the new literacy subscale, with most settings scoring 3 out of seven. In the settings with the high ratings staff were extending children’s literacy through the following practices: reading environmental print with children; integrating literacy across the curriculum and throughout the day; engaging in literacy interactions with children; and promoting metalinguistic development† (Arthur and Makin) In this particular educational facility the staff used all resources to their advantage, from the simple hand washing sigh to other hygienic posters. The staff had set aside times for writing, play, and reading to help incorporate forms of literacy into all things done through the day. Through their curriculum and the observations of others this facility was able to statistically prove that an early start with literacy highly benefited these children. When considering the statistics there are some graphs that support, and show that early literacy is essential to doing well over all. â€Å"The impact of Teacher Responsively Education on Preschoolers’ Language and Literacy Skills,† provides direct evidence in standard chart format with a control group and tested group. (American Journal p323) Showing a direct relationship between early literacy and developmental improvement, a second graph from the American Journal, the graph shows the improvements from the fall testing and the spring testing of the impacts of early literacy. The graph shows the statistical improvement between the two testing times, providing direct evidence of the impact on the children tested. There are many facilities that provide the numbers on which the improvement was made; it spans all over the globe. Over all upon testing during the fall semester the control group initially started roughly at 3. 3%; where are the test group tested at a slightly higher 3. 4%. During the spring semester the control group tested lower still at print concept than the test group rising only . 28% from the initial testing scores. Reaching across the seas Australia has also been participating in the analysis of early literacy and its benefits on the overall aspect of children’s lives. In an article titled â€Å"Books, bytes and brains,† authors Hopkins, Brookes, and Green dive deeply into early literacy development and its impact on all areas of the lives of children. As stated in this article, â€Å"Literacy and numeracy are core life skills, the [acquisition of which has] profound consequences for individuals, families, communities and nations. † Literacy is essential these authors believe to a child’s overall future, â€Å"Improving literacy in contemporary society has been amply demonstrated to improve live chances for individuals across divers domains including health, mental health, housing, educational outcomes, employment opportunities, income levels, involvement with crime, and civic participation. † (Hopkins, Brookes, and Green) So many different areas are affected by a person’s literacy from the simple school grades to if they’ll end up in prison. Hopkins, ect al. states that â€Å"Traditional kinds of literacy skills are measured in programs such as NAPLAN are based on an understanding of a skilled reader as someone who ‘locates, understands, and interprets written information in prose and documents – including manuals, graphs, and schedules- to perform tasks; learns from text by determining the main idea or essential message; identifies relevant details, facts, and specifications; infers or locates the meaning of unknown or technical vocabulary; and judges the accuracy, appropriateness, style, and plausibility of reports, proposals, or theories of other writers. † With their definition of what an actual skilled reader is, it can seem almost impossible for a child to gain all those skills in their short school career. Therefore starting literacy early can give a child the advantage of gaining the firm foundation of those skills before they are being presented to them in the classroom. When starting the early foundation of early literacy there are some draw backs to the programs, or glitches that haven’t been worked out yet. â€Å"Analysis of data from the rating scales, staff interviews and parent focus groups indicates that a number of areas required further development. Even for those settings that rated highly for literacy. These include, building on home experiences; extending children’s home languages and literacies; utilizing technology and popular culture; and integrating literacy resources and staff-child interactions in dramatic play. † (Arthur, Makin) Improvement in these areas has been underway since the date of the article, in this program as well as others. Implementing home language and literacies could have a drastic effect on the early learning literacy because many homes now in America are not solely English speaking homes, where most lessons in school or an Early Learning Academy to teach early literacy are taught in English. Tying into home experiences can help a child more associate the lesson being taught because they can incorporate the object, lesson, or event with words or effective language skills. Even with the hiccups the early literacy programs have, there are visible benefits of the lessons they are teaching. Seeing the results of the early literacy programs is phenomenal, but looking at the other side research shows some negative effects of what happens when early literacy is not implemented. â€Å"Recent research shows that children who are ‘raised in a [non-academically] oriented environments have less experience using decontextualized language than their peers. †¦These children may communicate more readily through using images, physical activity, and symbolic representation’. † (Hopkins, Brookes and Green) With that research a child with the early literacy training entering the second grade for example has a better chance of being able to vocalize opinions or even understanding of a lesson than a child who has had no early literacy training. With education being at the heart of every aspect of life it is highly important to give children every chance to succeed. Word Count:1,244.

Homers the Iliad Essay

The Iliad is a Greek epic poem attributed to Homer. Paris, son of King Priam of Troy carries off Helen, wife of Menelaus. The epic describes the war waged by Achaean prince against Troy with an intention to recover Helen. Specifically, it deals with the anger of Achilles, the special hero of the poem at the slight put upon him by Agamemnon, leader of the host, and his final return to the field and slaying of Hector [MARGARET and JENNY, Para 1]. The Iliad is one of the most prominent among the ancient masterpieces in literature. It is about two countries that bitterly war over a single woman, Helen, the wife of Menelaus. The rivalry takes place for about ten years before the Argive armies (the Greeks) finally win out over the Trojans. Today, The Iliad is available to a contemporary audience in several different forms. It may be read, listened to, or viewed even by illiterates. The story’s author, Homer, has typically overcome the challenge of how to tell the story to the masses. He achieved it by singing the entire poem or perhaps several books at a time to them. Homer has employed the so called oral tradition of communication to reach the masses. In the epic, Homer has used certain terms which an average person in Ancient Greece could understand. These similes can be divided into several different categories: the descriptions of battles, people, and gods. In all cases, these similes are used to aid understanding in Greek oral tradition [Radman, Para 1]. The story suggests a battle between Troy and Greece in large scale. Since most of the listeners would never have seen such large wars, Homer has made an effort to link between what those people would understand and the actual events of the combat. The similes that Homer used to describe the various fighting scenes have nature as its basis to depict the actions of the warriors, or of entire ranks of men. If an average person who listens to the epic had never seen a war, he/she will never be able to visualize the actions being dictated. Therefore, Homer has used creative and elaborate descriptions of something common in an ordinary person’s lives, juxtaposed with the unfamiliar and it has allowed the listener to understand what the singer of the tale is trying to convey. The similes related to fighting are divided into two different categories: the type depicting animals in nature, and of the happenings of the natural world itself. When one goes through the text, he/she could notice similes on a single page of fighting, describing one or several people through animal behavior. This could be observed when the Trojans are fighting for the body of Patroclus. There the simile used links their armies to an angered hive of wasps. When the Trojans charge it, the simile goes like: they swarmed forth like wasps from a roadside nest when boys have made it their sport to set them seething, day after day tormenting them round their wayside hive—idiot boys! They make a menace for every man in sight. Any innocent traveler passing them on that road can stir them accidentally—up in arms in a flash, all in a swarm come pouring, each one raging down to fight for home and children †¦[Radman, Para 4] The movements of entire armies in a seething battle portray the images found in a typical life of an Ancient Greek. The other two frequently used references to the mass movements of troops are that of land and water. These references utilize the commonality of the elements so that Homer can describe some scenarios to the listeners who find it difficult to understand such scenes. Another simile that is used frequently in battles is when one person was singled out for a description of their fighting prowess. These similes call upon the graphic details of wolves in attack, or the ravaging of a lion. Menelaus is one of the Argive warriors and when he is fighting rigorously in the battle, the other would-be attackers are frightened-off by the intense ferocity of his initial attack. Homer describes this scenario as follows †¦ as a fierce mountain lion sure of his power, seizing the choicest head from a good grazing herd. First he cracks its neck, clamped in his huge jaws, mauling the kill then down in gulps he bolts it, blood and guts, and around him dogs and shepherds raise a fierce din but they keep their distance, lacking nerve to go in and take the lion on †¦[Radman, Para 7] There are several observations that can be made by looking at the similes of warriors in battle. The first is that the type of animal used to describe Menelaus and his actions represents his ferocious nature. In other instances, the lion is used to describe several fighters like Argives and Trojans. The second major use of simile is to describe people in combative and non-combative situations. Generally, these can be seen as a type of title for the person described. Only the major characters of the epic are named with such titles. The types of titles given in the story fall in to two categories: titles of mortal men and women, and those of the gods. Even mortals are given due importance in some scenes. As far as fighting is concerned, most of the similes are linked with the characters of Achilles, Agamemnon, Hector, and Ajax, along with other men who were often referred to in battle as having the characteristics of a lion. It reflects their skill, strength, and overall mighty presence. Other types of creatures that have nothing to with battle are used to describe some of the fighters. For instance, Achilles is once addressed as a dolphin while slaughtering Trojans in the Xanthus River. Trojans try hard to save their life from Achilles. Here is the text from the epic that describes the scenario: Like shoals of fish darting before some big-bellied dolphin, escaping, cramming the coves of a good deepwater harbor, terrified for their lives- he devours all he catches- so the Trojans down that terrible river’s onrush cowered under its bluffs [Radman, Para 12]. In the epic, a mortal is often compared to a deity. In many scenes, a man’s fighting skill is mentioned as divine. Generally, this is just an elaborate way to say that a person has done something really well. Everyone knows that the God Hephaestus, â€Å"the famous crippled Smith,† was the god of fire [Radman, Para 14]. As Patroclus makes a fire that is worthy of a God, it is surely a mighty blaze which Patroclus has created. The listeners of ancient Greece wondered at these great skills. Many of these similes aimed at embellishing a person’s qualities to make them all the more impressive. While describing Gods, similes are slightly more difficult to come by. As it will sound bad to compare a god to a mortal, Homer describes them by their specific abilities. In essence, he moves laterally instead of vertically. The entire epic is filled with many different types of similes used in the graphic depiction of battles, people, places, and gods. Hats off to Homer who has used the similes in such a creative way that even an illiterate can understand what Homer means to say in his poem. The similes not only assist a reader in trying to imagine what is being read, but also allow him/her to understand how relations are described to people who are less advanced than a modern culture. The epic serves a multi-functional purpose today. It is used as a tool to learn about a culture which has faded from the face of the planet into the obscurity of ancient tales and legends [Radman, Para 16]. Apart from teaching about the wars fought, the types of armor, weapons, and the strategies used in conquests of other countries in that time period, the epic also stresses on the most important usage of and gives an insight in to the social standards of the time, how that culture behaved, what they believed, and how they lived. People will learn from this classical epic for generations to come. An epic is considered to have gained a great success when it reaches even the masses