Characterization of Coriolanus

Shakespeare's last play, Coriolanus was undoubtedly not his most popular. The play describes a story of a god-like warrior who conquers the city of Corioles and granted a renaming to "Coriolanus" in honor of his bravery and confidence. Shakespeare develops the character of Coriolanus both indirectly and directly for the purpose of obtaining an incomplete demigod esque character who is unable to transform into a classical hero. To further highlight this, In act 1, Shakespeare develops his character so significantly, only to fall and intentionally make him a "tragic hero".

This political play contributes to Shakespeares characterization of Coriolanus. In Act 1, Martius has a fight with the plebeians of which increases opportunity to characterize him through different perspective whilst applying a political context.  Coriolanus is described as the "chief enemy of the people" because of the grain issue currently hindering the Roman society. It is obvious that in later scenes that characters such as Menenius and Volumnia think very differently about him, giving an indirect view of his character. Later, during the battle of Volsces, Coriolanus is a brave and honorable member of the Roman army during his first encounter with Aufidius. This was also an indication of foreshadowing his attack against his own kin(betrayal and exile to Rome) whilst intentionally developing his traits and qualities to make him a stronger protagonist. 

We see numerous cases of foreshadowing and repetition that engraves various themes and asks questions about the play as the plot thickens. Furthermore, this allows the play to go forward whilst we continue to learn about his character through indirect characterization of him in the past and his transition of what he currently is taking into consideration the historical context. Lastly, and more importantly, Coriolanus has been built as an incomplete classical hero and referenced to the more popular classic hero Hector. "When she did suckle Hector...Then hectors forehead when it spit forth blood, At grecian sword contemning". Doing this helps the audience understand Shakespeare's intentions of Coriolanus' demi god like characterization that ends up tragically, and so he ends up becoming a Tragic hero.

In conclusion, Shakespeare uses historical and political context to both drive the story of Coriolanus' whilst directly and indirectly characterizing him to become a strong protagonist that lives only to see his own downfall.

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The Only Speaker of his Tongue by David Malouf

David Malouf's "The Only Speaker of his Tongue" illustrates perfectly the direct importance of preservation of languages and the responsibility that one may hold to preserving such a thing. Beautiful in its captivating imagery, the statement that resonated with me would be, "The first landscape here is dead. It dies in this mans eyes as his tongue licks the edge of the horizon, before it has quite dried up in his mouth. There is a new one that others are making."

Although not explicit, Malouf captured my attention to this statement, shouting numerous answers. One being which that the landscape he refers to might be his land or culture and how it is dying, or being torn apart. The second being, that the language in fact is what does in the mans eyes, as he sees throughout history and his lifetime its rarity and how it has been almost completely abolished. Malouf also says that his tongue of which speaks the language is trying to grasp for more people to say at as if he is struggling to get nourishment from the food he had already finished. It then "dries up in his mouth" as in slowly being removed and eventually instinct for decades. HE also uses others as if the people that we now conform to are doing something negative by taking their language, as if power of the people has been completely destroyed.

I can admit that I am not a victim of endangered languages and I am quite proud to regard myself as a fluent person in english. Although this may seem to be very arrogant, because this is my only language I can consider myself to be part of a community rather than to conform as many have did in the last generations. A beautiful excerpt that hides the reality of the past,present and future, Malouf brilliantly illustrates the dying languages and how society feels the need to conform to the international language that is today, English.

Power and Resistance - Value of Preserving Indigenous Languages

3. What is the value of preserving indigenous languages?

As  a common New Yorker once said, "the loss of languages passed down for millennia, along with their unique arts and cosmologies, may have consequences that won’t be understood until it is too late to reverse them.” Meaning that if we do not prevent the loss of ancient and indigenous langauges(as well as its culture and arts) the consequences could be severe and we may not know this until we see them. 

Personally, I think that the value of indigenous languages should be taken more seriously from the general population of which speak english. For example, I am from South Africa, but i can only speak english fluently and it is my identity and part of my upbringing. What many seem to dismiss is that many people are not exposed to english as often and in turn feel strongly about preserving their language. This indigenous language is important to people's identity and fully completes a culture. Although we might not recognize it, many of these indigenous languages have much reason to them and explore many things we don't know in the world today. Most often than not, we find the discoveries and inventions through languages that are now a staple such as Arabic,Hindi etc. Without knowing the power these languages contain, we can't simply just cut them off from reality.  On a more sensitive side, art and culture could open a number of possibilties to creators(artists,musicians,performers) that can further express a beauty of a culture. 

Keeping cultural diversity is an important factor.Now a language is not just a body of vocabulary or a set of grammatical rules, it’s a flash of the human spirit. It’s a vehicle for which the soul of a culture comes through to the material world. Every language in some sense is an ecosystem of ideas, a watershed of thought, an old growth forest of the mind. Its  a way of saying,expressing,thinking and feeling.As a crucial building block of culture, we can use ideas and creations to unlock the door for new and better values. We can model this and simply live in a more harmonious world and enjoy better lives.

Every language is important, and if you don't see that, you need to be more open minded.

Generation Like Response - 3rd Response(empowered)

Society is so engrossed in pop culture and social media, they don't even realize they are being exploited by advertisers and content creator's. Youtube, a popular website that shares online videos about a variety of topics with millions of different content creators. Are these content creators(at least the popular ones) being exploited as a marketing tool, or are they benefiting from the uprise in fame?

Personally the content creators(Youtube Stars) are essentially being used by advertisers, but i disagree with them being exploited. As they are voluntarily being apart of this campaign or marketing tool, they want to participate. Do they want to promote the ad itself? Probably not. Most Youtubers clearly become corrupt with power and the money they earn. They only take up this advertising to essentially benefit themselves whilst unseemingly benefiting the advertisers at the same time. As a result their popularity increases and so does their income. After increasing popularity the amount of opportunities increase and increase chance to boost income. Many You-tubers take a path of which they can make either a film,song,movie or a combination of these things. Going "viral" as such is important to Youtubers as almost all of them rely on their Youtuber money and advertising to help them live their lives. Many of these stars are also trying to grind as much money as they can as they will most defintely be thinking about the future of Youtube and if it is just a phase. With all these opportunities Youtubers are being offered they are very much being empowered as opposed to exploited. The reasons above are clear reasons of how Advertising revolves around pop-culture and essentially social media. Whilst many might say Advertising manipulates pop culture through the use of social media are correct, but in this case Youtube Stars are being empowered to create their own form of pop-culture and make money revolve around them. If their content becomes viral and trendy that can be classified as pop culture and because of that advertisers need to adapt to their style in order to use them or their content to promote their product. The demographic of consumers of the content is also very important but if it is seemingly popular it most likely will be yet another opportunity. The content creators feed off  consumers(normal society) through use of social media and their form of pop culture. Advertising then leech of their pop culture and then promote their items through social media. In every case money is both being used and gained from this cycle. In my opinion Youtubers and Content creators and being both empowered to a point where they can classify and change pop - culture to their style of which advertisers must conform to if they want to achieve their goal.

We live in a crazy society with an ever so revolving cycle around the main goal for everyone involved. MONEY.

UNICEF AD - Analysis

The Unicef Tap program is an initiative by charity group and organization Unicef to create better lives for people who are in need. The predominant purpose being to persuade and encourage people to take part in this program that will undoubtedly save and help many lives. The social context of the ad is the clear slogan - "you don't have to be a celebrity to make a difference". Clearly reflecting todays society/culture of which millions of people disregard charity and donations as they assume that even if they did contribute they wouldn't make a difference as opposed to a wealthy celebrity. Using this context, they make the target audience middle class people with enough money to support themselves. This time they have altered the scenario to encourage people further, by doing this program on a mobile phone and no money needs to be donated. The tap water program is a mobile app of which makes users wait 5 minutes without touching their phone to make Unicef donate money from other sponsors.Quite obviously, they use a smart persuasive technique of making the audience(middle class joe's) empowered by not forcing them to donate but encouraging them to donate in a less economic straining way. Unicef highlights the slogan whilst not  branding celebrities to further persuade their target audience. 

To conclude, the core purpose of the ad is to ask people for help by  encouraging and persuading people to join and try the tap water program to help those in need.

The Pitch - McDonalds Fast Food Reflection

Natalie and I created an advertisement pitch for the popular fast food chain McDonalds. Our company name was Prestige Worldwide.


In the pitch, i used the appeal of both humor, and more specifically,the need for affiliation. We used appeal of humor as we knew we would be making a youtube video ad. With this in mind, a majority of our audience would be attracted to mockery and humor of which we consistently show in the video. We also thought because many people want to be included, they could explicitly see the appeal in the video. Sophisticated language was key in the presentation and more importantly, we kept expressing our gratitude for the opportunity as McDonalds then would recognize that this company really wants this job. We also kept both classic McDonalds elements(slogan+mascot) whilst creating and adapting our own slogan and rival mascot,  to create not only a more interesting ad, but a win-win situation.

We used King Burger( Burger King) as we knew it is very popular in the U.S and being McDonalds main competitor, it would very much increase our chances of getting hired if we degraded or mocked them in some format or way (context very much influenced this). We had a logo in mind, but unfortunately William was sick and could not bring it. Otherwise we used the McDonalds logo just to remind the company that they are in charge and of course used the slogan for added emphasis on the conclusion of the pitch.

I felt individually i didn't prepare for it very well, bearing in mind we only had 3 days, however i still don't think it can reflect my true potential because one member was not here and that I had no control over the powerpoint. Otherwise, i felt my speaking skills are great, i just need to avoid the stutters.

Speaking skills and preparation before hand are key to oral assessments and the FOA won't be very different. This was most definitely the most exciting activity to date, and i liked how we could practice these skills in a different format and register. Overall,  a very successful activity, that i could take both negative and positives from for my FOA.

Till next time!