August Wilson’s “Fences” delves into the lives of African Americans. More specifically, Wilson uses the life of the protagonist Troy Maxson to explore common social conflicts and themes such as love, gender roles, and responsibility. Troy’s conflict with the Whites, as well as Tory’s relationship with Rose, are two dominant conflicts that appear throughout the story; however, the author puts more emphasis on the conflict between Troy and his son, Cory. Although the setting is in the 1950s the social issues highlighted in “Fences” are still relevant today.
Family Conflict
The conflict between Troy and Cory is one of the main issues raised by Wilson and it is evident from multiple instances. Troy and his son live in two different realities. On the one hand, Cory is convinced that he can be a successful baseball player while Troy is still caught up in the past. Cory, on the other hand, was born at a time when change was starting to take root. More black players make the first team and Troy’s son believes that he has the opportunity to succeed in professional baseball. In one instance Cory complains that “You (Troy) ain’t never gave me nothing! You ain’t never done nothing but hold me back. Afraid I was gonna be better than you” (Mays). His father is angered with such ambitions because he cannot yet accept the fact that times have changed. He even sends his son away from home. In retaliation, Cory loses all respect for Tory to the point that he is unwilling to attend his funeral.
Father-son conflict is a common phenomenon in the modern world. Most fathers who act authoritatively find that their sons might become rebellious. Still, it has been found that men might put in the effort to salvage something out of the bad relationship although the exact opposite happens in the case of Troy. Rather than nurturing a personal relationship with his son, Troy becomes resentful and bitter to the point of sending his son away. Experts agree that in such a situation the father should initiate and lead the reconciliation process. Troy, for example, could have attempted to see the world from his son’s perspective. At least, he should have shown interest in helping Cory achieve his goal to become a professional athlete. On the other hand, Cory can also attempt to see his father’s perception and understand that change is inherently difficult. Cory’s conflict with his father dominates their entire relationship from the time he was a child (Wilson). He insists that he has never felt loved by his father despite doing his best to become successful in life. As a result, Cory wants to create a life away from his father although this only intensifies the conflict between them.
As early as the first scene, the audience can see that Troy is a man of many layers. He is authoritative and wants to control everything in the family, but at the same time, he is unfaithful. He is also determined to ensure that his children have a better life than he had and fights for equal rights. Just like most parents today, Troy tries to sell personal beliefs and philosophy to his family in many ways. For instance, he insists that his sons should learn old songs that were passed on to him by his father. During his time as a player, Tory rarely made the first team even though he was a talented athlete. He is adamant that the same fate awaits his son and tries to convince him that the fact that he was black meant it was impossible to get the priority in anything, let alone sports. This harsh reality affected Troy mentally and psychologically; so much that he believes society can’t change. Unfortunately, his insistence that Cory should give up baseball leads the son to a displeasing fate.
Broken father-son relationships are prolific in classical literature. Ernest J. Gaines and Ernest Hemingway, for example, highlight generational conflicts and the conflict in the son-father relationship. More specifically, Hemingway tries to deconstruct pervasive notions about Native Americans by telling the story of Nick and his father. Another writer who expresses similar sentiments is Robert Bly. In his poem, “Prayer for my Father”, Bly writes… “that body in you insisting on living in the old hawk for whom the world darkens (“Prayer for My Father by Robert Bly | Poetry Magazine”)”. Similarly, Gaines uses short stories to expose the divide in the African-American family, asserting that the surrogate and the extended African American family is ever-changing.
Racism
Racism is another important issue raised by Wilson in “Fences”. Racial discrimination directly destroyed Tory’s dreams of becoming a professional baseball player. Cory’s dreams were also ruined by racism, though indirectly. As the play comes to the end, Tory gets promoted to a truck driver but he soon realizes that the new position was not what he expected. He is unable to socialize with other workers because most of them are white and he ends up hating his job. Today, racism is still a pervasive issue that continues to affect people’s lives negatively. The last fifty years have seen some progress, however, more still needs to be done if there is going to be equality (Brooks et al., 1-5). According to recent research, black people are particularly dissatisfied with the progress made in the U.S. In fact, “… more than eight-in-ten black adults say the legacy of slavery affects the position of black people in America today, including 59% who say it affects it a great deal” (Horowitz et al. par.3). There are also those who like Troy believe it is impossible to achieve racial equality in the U.S. More specifically, “about eight-in-ten blacks (78%) say the country hasn’t gone far enough when it comes to giving black people equal rights with whites, and fully half say it’s unlikely that the country will eventually achieve racial equality” (Horowitz et al.par.3).
Family Responsibility
Family responsibility is the contemporary issue that appears repeatedly in “Fences”. Once again Wilson uses the protagonist’s life to highlight common questions such as caring for the spouse, child protection, and the ability to emotional support (Wilson). Like most fathers today, Troy is caught up in the illusion that his only responsibility is to provide shelter and food. He is not concerned with the emotional well-being of his sons and doesn’t see value in being faithful to his wife. Troy’s point of view is that as long as he provides for his wife, then he could go around seeing other women. Instead of trying to strengthen his relationship with his legitimate family, Troy builds a fence and widens the divide within the family. Wilson makes it clear that Troy’s infidelity destroys his marriage to Rose. For instance, as soon as Troy brings his son with Alberta, Rose makes the following remarks, “From right now… this child got a mother. But you a womanless man” (Mays). Ultimately Troy’s relationship with Alberta destroys his marriage.
Today there are different laws and regulations associated with family responsibility. Such laws do not get into matters of personal responsibility; for example, there are no regulations that make it mandatory for fathers to provide emotional support. Still, relevant concepts such as caregiving responsibilities and employees’ rights are covered in the law. An excellent example is the Family responsibilities discrimination (FRD) which addresses employees’ responsibility to provide care to members of their family (O’Connor et al., 212-220). FRD applies to any working man or woman in the U.S who might want to actively take care of the children.
Conclusion
To summarize, issues associated with racism, family responsibility, and family conflict are equally relevant in the modern world as they were during the 1940s and 1950s when Wilson composed “Fences”. The conflict between Troy and his son essentially gives insight into contemporary conflicts created by the generational gap everywhere. What makes the play so effective is the fact that Wilson delves into the private lives of the protagonist and his family. In other words, the author uses the characters to present the internal conflict caused by issues such as racism and family conflict. Troy’s internal struggle with racism is what influences his decisions for the family. Unfortunately, he only manages to intensify the family conflict and ultimately destroys his relationship with Cory. One might rightly argue that Troy’s actions are motivated by the desire to change his son’s life because he is unable to change his own. He is determined to convince his son that the world is a cruel place where black people are seen as lesser beings. Troy’s obsession to control everyone his family can easily be seen from the following remarks made by Cory,
“The whole time I was growing up…living in his house…Papa was like a shadow that followed you everywhere. It weighed on you and sunk into your flesh. It would wrap around you and lay there until you couldn’t tell which one was you anymore” (Wilson I).
Unfortunately, Troy does not recognize that his efforts to control Cory’s life only push them apart. Cory finally decides he had enough and leaves home to enroll in the marines; more than thirty years ago, Troy had also left home following a confrontation with his father.
Works Cited
Brooks, Wanda M. et al. “Reading, Sharing, and Experiencing Literary/Lived Narratives about Contemporary Racism”. Sage Journals, 2018.
Horowitz, Juliana Menasce et al. “Views On Race in America 2019”. Pew Research Center’S Social & Demographic Trends Project, Web.
Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. WW Norton & Company, 2015.
O’Connor, Lindsey Trimble, and Julie A. Kmec. “Is It Discrimination, Or Fair and Deserved? How Beliefs About Work, Family, And Gender Shape Recognition of Family Responsibilities Discrimination”. Sage Journals, 2020.
“Prayer for My Father by Robert Bly | Poetry Magazine”. Poetry Magazine, Web.
Wilson, August. Fences. vol. 6. Penguin, 2016.
Sociological Analysis Of Nosedive: “Black Mirror” By Brooker
Introduction
In the past few decades, media was the source of shaping people’s opinions and the broadcaster of fundamental thoughts, ideas, and messages. The advent of television programs, radio, or social media has changed the perception of such messages, whether they are open or hidden, that sometimes cannot be easily analyzed. People are not prone to reflecting upon these meanings, or hear them unconsciously, or even becoming part of mass production.
Such an audience is considered to be passive, i.e., they absorb the material presented by the media. The primary purpose of the mass media is to notify the public about the problems in social contexts and encourage them to perceive and analyze the issues to be socially aware. Therefore, any film, book, or TV series episode can be viewed from the sociological perspective to point out acute problems society faces. The purpose of this paper is to dissect the episode of a famous British TV series Black Mirror and extract the problems it communicates.
TV Series Background
The author and humorist Charlie Brooker elaborated British TV series Black Mirror (2011-present). Most of the episodes focus on human life dominated by futuristic technologies and try to warn the spectators about the abuse of such inventions that may be just around the corner. Thus, sometimes satirical and even dark themes are broadcasted to address the consequence of relations between society and media use.
One of the crucial episodes dedicated to the overuse of technology is named Nosedive, released in 2016. Nosedive depicts a speculatively dystopian world where human actions are rated by others through the application that shapes individual societal and economic status. The images of a peaceful and quiet neighborhood open the episode, which narrates the story of a young career-orientated woman, Lacie Pound. Despite living in a decent house, she aspires to acquire a luxurious apartment. However, her rating is not high enough to afford such an apartment, so she uploads sentimental pictures on her profile and gets rated by her childhood friend Naomi who has a higher rank on the platform. Later, Naomi invites Lacie to the wedding as a maid of honor, so Lacie expects the guests to enhance her rating.
Unfavorably, some mishaps occurred on her way, lowering her rating, and forcing her to hitchhike with a middle-aged woman Susan, who admitted to feeling better not being obsessed with grades. Naomi told Lacie not to come as her presence would reduce others’ ranks. Despite having been warned, she sneaked to the reception and gave an appalling speech shocking everyone around and causing her rating to drop to the lowest. As fate would have it, she ends up in prison, realizing that from then on, she was free from ratings and opinions.
Sociological Analysis
This analysis aims to examine fundamental sociological concepts (status, socialization, elites, socioeconomic identity, etc.) that can apply to the review of a movie, book, or TV series. This evaluation is supposed to identify the latent content of the episode and unveil sociological issues raised in Nosedive.
First and foremost, there is a need to mention how Nosedive translates a curious outlook on social and socioeconomic identities. The main character’s social status is represented as positive due to the central character Lacie’s favorable demeanor towards everyone around. She only gives herself a slack in front of her brother who does not care about social status. The social rating determines everything: the job, the place where one lives, friends, surroundings – the higher the score, the more powerful one becomes. Generally, if one is adored and respected by many, it gives them a boost in life, better opportunities of rising a career, or a more upscale dwelling. Lacie’s brother is on the opposite side of this unimpeachably perfect society – he lives irrespectively of social media assessment, and such people automatically become outcasts.
The episode precisely depicts the world run by social media and the superficiality of people’s perceptions of one another. Even though society encourages such virtues as courtesy and benevolence, it promotes spurious expectations. According to Yazdizadeh (2019), Nosedive communicates the concept of hyperreality that reflects how a set of ideal images creates a perceptible world and deprecates self-identity. However, not each member of this pastel world devoid of life substance owns an immaculate social media profile; therefore, they do not succeed. The people are still prone to thinking that the system is a fantastic solution to establishing stability within society. It is only a matter of how well they play their roles to fit in the surroundings.
Undoubtedly, the concept of self-identity and self-presentation is also structurally viewed through the influence of social media. The center of the episode is the quantified self, which logically implies that only numbers define a person but not their qualities and talents (McSweeney & Joy, 2019). Therefore, people may lose self-identity and follow the crowd or do what others like. For instance, when Lacie was sipping her coffee in a high-class cafeteria populated with citizens, she considered it necessary to post a picture of it on her profile. Even though the coffee tasted bland, she knew that posting something cute would elevate her rating. However, Lacie only tried to create such an image or the so-called simulacrum to blend into the high-class society, thus abandoning her real self.
There is another notable point Nosedive makes the spectator reflect upon – the role of the elite layer within the community. There is a distinct differentiation between the ones whose rating is close to 5 and the ones with the average score. McSweeney and Joy noted that the elite class of the society ultimately affects the rest as they predetermine their social and economic status by grading those (2019). A vivid example of such influence may be observed when Lacie was trying to seize the opportunity of enhancing her rating by attending her influential friend’s wedding. There she expected to get graded by elites of the society to afford a better life, which describes how those authoritative people dominate.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is necessary to mention that all the abovementioned problems raised in the episode of Black Mirror help to understand that social media can be a frustrating tool. Thus, social media is not an identifier of who we are, and it should neither affect people’s social nor economic status. In Lacie’s case, social media was equal to imprisonment, and her only way to freedom was through the sentence.
References
McSweeney, T., & Joy, S. (Eds.). (2019). Through the Black Mirror. UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yazdizadeh, A. (2019). In and out of the Black Mirror; an ideological investigation into ‘Nosedive’. A Journal of Historical & Cultural Studies, 25(1), 16-28.
Essay Voice-over
Compound Action Potential In Frog Sciatic Nerve
The duration, amplitude, and shape of the compound action potential change with an increase in stimulus strength. When stimulation increases in strength, more fiber nerves are activated and the AP of the fibers summates a CAP and as a result, when the stimulus happens to be stronger a large segment of the fibers attain threshold. It is important to note that the threshold of fibers depends on both stimulus power and the period of the stimulus as well (Aiki.bme.duke.edu, 2010).
Since action potential has negative and positive deflections, it is referred to as biphasic and its negative point is due to the arrangement of after-hyperpolarization while the negative mode of the CAP is so because of how it is recorded. When the extreme left-hand 1-2 mm of the nerve is keenly crushed, it will make the action potential monophasic this is because the action will depolarize the membrane effectively and permanently at this end and the result would be monophasic compound action potential.
Initially, a compound action potential will not be observable because of the minimal stimulus amplitude; however, a short biphasic deflection at the commencement of the exhibit will be observed (Peripheral Nerves, 2008). When stimulus strength is increased, it means more fibers are recruited thus more action potentials are summed up to produce a bigger bell-shaped curve. Therefore, the more the stimulus strength is increased the more fibers are recruited resulting in a wider compound action potential with a longer duration (Iworx.com, 2010). Beyond a certain point, a further increase in the stimulus voltage no longer increases the amplitude of the observed action potential because it will have reached the maximal stimulus voltage. The point where there is no change in the amplitude whatsoever – increase in stimulus voltage does is not affected by an increase in the compound action potential is the point which is known as maximal stimulus voltage. At a maximal point, the compound action potential does not increase because all the fibers of the nerve have been excited and are CAPs.
The sciatic frog nerves contain numerous axons that vary in thresholds, diameters, and degree of myelination (Neuroscience Laboratory, n.d.). The variations are a recipe for the different types of waves. Type A fibers are the fibers that have the fastest conduction velocities and are the most myelinated and are further subdivided into δ, β, α, and γ types. Another type of fiber is type B which like type A is myelinated but they have slower conduction velocity and smaller diameters. The other group of fibers is type C, which has unmyelinated axons and is very small. Therefore, the waves are due to the responses of axons of the various fibers when stimulus is delivered to the nerve. When the waves move closer, it means that their velocity is increasing.
Conduction Velocity = Change of conduction distance:
- Peak latency
- = (25-0) mm/ (2.85-1.50) ms
- =25mm/1.35ms
- =18.5mm/ms
According to the McGill Physiology Virtual Lab (2010), “Absolute refractory period is the brief interval after a successful stimulus when no second shock, however maximal, can elicit another response. Its duration in mammalian A fiber is about 0.4 ms; in frog nerve, at 15oC it is about 2 ms”. This particular period will follow the absolute refractory period and it will not result until high stimulus voltage is passed through the system. It, therefore, follows that the refractoriness cannot be overcome by increasing the stimulus voltage.
When stimulus voltage is consistently increased, a second wave will be observed due to the response. It will appear very small will be a product of A-beta fibers. Axon’s response to the stimulus is reduced and after AP the axon can’t initiate another AP with the stimulus of any strength and this time that is known as the absolute refractory period. The axon can shoot a second AP after the absolute refractory period but with a stimulus of larger strength hence the relative refractory period. This relation exhibit the unique relationship between the two refractory periods that gives paramount information in either relating the periods or understanding their sequence.
There will not be any change in the action potential amplitudes impulse with nerve firing at 10impulses per second provided the stimulus strength be maintained. This is because duration, amplitude, and shape action potential are directly proportional to stimulus strength (Oakley Schafer, 200). Since there are directly proportional to stimulus strength, a decrease or increase in the stimulus strength will affect them accordingly. The local anesthetic will gradually block the conduction of action potential because during the process the transfer of charges and depolarization of membranes will be taking place to a point where there will be no more action potential. The fibers do not block at the same time since they have different properties.
References
Aiki.bme.duke.edu, 2010. Electrophysiology of the frog Sciatic nerve. Web.
Iworx.com, 2010. Recording compound Action potential with a differential amplifier.Web.
McGill Physiology Virtual Lab, (2010). Compound action potential. Web.
Neuroscience Laboratory, n.d.. The compound action potential. Web.
Oakley, B. & Schafer, B., 2001. Compound action potentials: frog sciatic nerve. Web.
Peripheral Nerves, 2008. The compound action potential. Web.