Geslalt Psychology - 1501 Words

Gestalt psychology means unified whole. Gestalt psychology does not look at things as individual elements but as a whole. The three main founders who established the school of gestalt psychology were Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka as well as Wolfgang Kohler. The foundations of the Gestalt psychology are perception, memory and learning. Some of the principles of Gestalt psychology are isomorphism, productive thinking as well as reproductive thinking which will be elaborated in this essay. One of the main contributions of Gestalt psychology is Gestalt therapy which focuses on helping an individual understand their internal self and the difference of what they experience and interpretation of events. Gestalt is a psychology term which means†¦show more content†¦This shows that the pattern of a persons conscious experience or perception is structurally similar to the patterns of the activity of the brain. The isomorphism discussed in gestalt theory is mainly functional isomorphism. Behavior of a system as if it was physically similar in shape. It can only be assumed as the exact geometrical configuration of the brain but cannot be observed phenomenological. Productive thinking will lead to an understanding of the relationships between the objects in a problem which will in turn lead to an abstract thought process which can be applied to future problems. Productive thinking is used when there is no obvious answer to the problem. It basically requires the individual to think out of the box to get to the answer. For example, in the Two String Problem experiment, participants were asked to enter a room where to strings were tie at each end of the room and was impossible to grasp both at the same time. At the same time a pair of pliers was also found in the room. Participants were asked to tie both strings together. This situation required participants to perceive the relationship between the objects and relate it to the question that they were asked. The way to resolve this problem was to use the pliers to act as pendulums to give the strings some weight so that it can be further extended and participant can then pull these extended strings towards each other and tie it.Show MoreRelatedHumanistic Psychology Essay1421 Words   |  6 PagesGreece and Europe of the Renaissance, when such affirmations were expressed. Humanistic Psychology is a contemporary manifestation of that ongoing commitment. Its message is a response to the denigration of the human spirit that has so often been implied in the image of the person drawn by behavioral and social sciences. Ivan Pavlovs work with the conditioned reflex had given birth to an academic psychology in the United States led by John Watson, which came to be called the science of behaviorRead More Humanistic Psychology Essay1424 Words   |  6 PagesGreece and Europe of the Renaissance, when such affirmations were expressed. Humanistic Psychology is a contemporary manifestation of that ongoing commitment. Its message is a response to the denigration of the human spirit that has so often been implied in the image of the person drawn by behavioral and social sciences. Ivan Pavlovs work with the conditioned reflex had given birth to an academic psychology in the United States led by John Watson, which came to be called quot;the science of behavior†

Herman Melville’s’ Moby Dick Free Essays

Introduction Moby Dick has secured the author’s reputation in the first rank of all American writers. Firstly, the novel was published in the expurgated form and was called The Whale. It was published in 1851 (Bryant 37). We will write a custom essay sample on Herman Melville’s’ Moby Dick or any similar topic only for you Order Now â€Å"Moby Dick† is an encyclopedia of the American romanticism. Here there are thousands of private observations, concerning the developments of the American bourgeois democracy and the American public consciousness. These observations were made by writers and poets, the predecessors of Melville. Here we can see the united protest of the American romantic idea against bourgeois and capitalistic progress in its national American forms. Meaning of cannibalism In the present paper we will discuss the meaning of cannibalism in the novel (Delbanco 26). The famous citation of the chapter 65 contains deep sense that deserves thorough analysis: â€Å"Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras† (Melville 242).  Moby dick is also educational and true, because Romanticism believed that fiction had to be the only vehicle to describe the history of the past. The intention was to make the story interesting (Bryant 14). To understand the original meaning of cannibalism in the  novel it is important to establish principles which Melville has built the narration on. The attitude towards cannibals is described better in the story â€Å"Typee†. The connection with this story helps us understand the meaning of the abovementioned citation from â€Å"Moby Dick†.   Pictures of savages’ life drawn by writer bear all features of â€Å"an ideal life â€Å". Melville admired the life of the tribe, but we can’t but notice, however, that he was not going to offer the reader a happy life of savages as the sample for imitation. The poetic pictures drawn by the writer have another meaning. They are created for comparison with contemporary bourgeois civilization (Delbanco 26). According to Melville, Bourgeois civilization, in the kind it existed at the beginning of XIX century, had no future. â€Å"Ideality† of savages in has two aspects: natural and public (Bryant 37). In natural aspect the savage is ideal because it is fine, and it is fine because has kept the features of the physical shape lost by the civilized person (Bryant 15). Melville adhered the same principle when he spoke about â€Å"ideality† of cannibals’ social existence. A savage does not have property, and it does not know what money is. It is relieved by that of two harms of a civilization. They cannot have a desire to act in defiance of truth and validity (Bryant 15). There is no stimulus for that. The savage is not spoiled by a civilization, but it has the defects: cannibalism and heathenism. However, what do they mean in comparison with more severe, realized crimes of the civilized person? In Moby Dick Melville is rather laconic describing savages life elements, but narrates in detail about the bourgeois state and the legislation, police, crimes against society, about power of money, about religious prosecutions, noxious influence of the society on a person – all that precedes eschatological accidents (i.e. infringement of the right and morals, conflicts, the crimes of people demanding punishment of gods) (Bryant 36). Melville does not dismiss cannibalism, backwardness of intelligence and public consciousness, primitiveness of a life and many other negative phenomena in a life of â€Å"happy† savages. Speaking about some wild or even brutal customs of savages, he finds parallels in a life of a civilized society: cannibalism is a devil art which we find out in the invention of every possible retaliatory machines; retaliatory wars are poverty and destructions; the most furious animal in the word is the white civilized person (Delbanco 25). Symbolism as a trait of romanticism in the novel It is not the only symbolic trait in the Moby Dick. For example, all crew members are given descriptive, biblical-sounding names and Melville avoids the exact time of all events and very details. It is the evidence of allegorical mode. It is necessary to mention the mix of pragmatism and idealism (Bryant 14). For example, Ahab desires to pursue the whale and Starbuck desires to arrange a normal commercial ship dealing with whaling business. Moby Dick can be considered as the symbolical example of good and evil (Delbanco 25). Moby Dick is like a metaphor for â€Å"elements of life that are out of people’s control†. The Pequod’s desire to kill the white whale is allegorical, because the whale represents the main life goals of Ahab. What is more important is that Ahab’s revenge against Moby is analogous to people’s struggling against the fate (Bryant 14). Conclusion In conclusion it is necessary to admit that Melville thought people needed to have something to reach for in their life and the desirable goal might destroy the life of a person. Moby Dick is a real obsession which affected the life of ship crew (Bryant 37). Thus, the  system of images in â€Å"Moby Dick† makes us understand the basic ideas of the novel of Melville. Eschatological accidents often are preceded with infringement of the right and morals, conflicts and crimes of people, and the world perishes from fire, flood, cold, heat, famine. We can see this in the novel  «Moby Dick† which shows a life of the American society of the beginning of XIX century (Delbanco 15). Works cited Levine, Robert S., ed. The Cambridge Companion to Herman Melville. Cambridge, UK New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Delbanco, Andrew. Melville: His World and Work. New York: Knopf, 2005 Melville, Herman: Redburn, White-Jacket, Moby-Dick (G. Thomas Tanselle, ed.) (Library of America, 1983) Bryant, John, ed. A Companion to Melville Studies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1986 Bryant, John. Melville and Repose: The Rhetoric of Humor in the American Renaissance. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001 How to cite Herman Melville’s’ Moby Dick, Essay examples

Not in Front of the Audience Homosexuality on Stage Essay Example For Students

Not in Front of the Audience: Homosexuality on Stage Essay Much of the important work on theatre history and dramatic literature currently being done within the academy falls under the category of gender studies. Responding to Adrienne Richs call to revise the cultural past (to look back in gender, as Michelle Wandor has put it), feminist critics and their progeny, especially in gay and lesbian studies, have been rewriting our dramatic heritage both by unearthing new subjects for study (the careers of Edy Craig and Elizabeth Robins, the plays of Aphra Behn and Githa Sowerby) and by offering new ways of looking at even the most canonical texts (the theoretical work of Teresa De Lauretis, Jill Dolan, Sue-Ellen Case and Elin Diamond). Outline1 Dawn of sexual candor  2 Multiple messages  3 Utopian allegories   Dawn of sexual candor   As this catalogue of names suggests, the task of engendering theatre has been taken up, for the most part, by feminist scholars interested both in female theatre practitioners of the past and in the creation of a feminist theatrical criticism for the present. Increasingly, male critics are turning their hands to this project. In contributing to our understanding of how homosexuality has been represented by English and American playwrights of this century, John M. Clum and Nicholas de Jongh place this formerly unspeakable subject center stage. In analyzing the politics of masculinity in the work of two of Americas leading playwrights, David Savran opens up new perspectives on the careers of Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams and, in the process, pioneers a critical form that is both admirably formalist in its precision and ambitiously political in its implications. In the introduction to Not in Front of the Audience, de Jongh divides the history of male homosexuality on the modern stage into three eras: the triumphalism of the Christian ethic (1925-1958), when homosexuality was represented as the archetype of evil; the later Cold War phase (1958-1967), when the homosexual was the model of the pathetic-unfortunate; and the final period (1968-1985), during which the negative myths, by which homosexuals were judged, began to be eroded. Although the story de Jongh eventually tells turns out to be far less linear and far more interesting than this periodization suggests, his is primarily an eschatological history: We have emerged from the dark ages of stereotype into the dawn of a theatre of sexual candor. De Jongh is at his best telling the British side of his story in a series of theatrical anecdotes. (In this respect, his book provides a useful supplement to Kaier Curtins groundbreaking We Can Always Call Them Bulgarians: The Emergence of Lesbian and Gay Men on the American Stage.) His account of John Osbornes fight with the Lord Chamberlain over the censorship of A Patriot for Me provides an interesting look at the last phase of official censorship in the London theatre. His record of the genesis of Martin Shermans Bent describes the new battles playwrights had to wage when the sources of censorship became more diffuse. As theatre critic for Londons Evening Standard, de Jongh sprinkles his history with first-hand accounts of plays in performance and personal interviews. Clums Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama covers some of the same ground, but in a more idiosyncratic and ultimately more suggestive fashion. Although his book, like de Jonghs, can at times seem both overly critical (especially of gay playwrights whose works reflect now politically incorrect ideas about homosexuality) and overly prescriptive about what a new gay theatre should be, Clum nonetheless takes a much broader and more liberating view of what gay audiences might find empowering. .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 , .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .postImageUrl , .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 , .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:hover , .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:visited , .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:active { border:0!important; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:active , .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492 .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u2accfab2c45dc866467b697e5ae09492:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Ritual primitive form of theatre? Essay Multiple messages   For de Jongh, the theatre has traditionally promoted plays of rigid orthodoxy, driving home messages of political, social and sexual conformity to the status quo. He imagines audiences as passive consumers of such messages. Clum is more attuned to the quirkily subversive ways in which we appropriate theatrical experience for our own ends, the ways in which we refuse to reduce the medium to a single message. For de Jongh, homosexuality must be explicitly present in the text for it to qualify for analysis; for Clum, a theatrical event can become gay through other meansa kiss, a naked body, a bit of strategically placed drag. Hence, John Guares Six Degrees of Separation might be as gay as Doric Wilsons Street Theatre, a production of Shakespeares The Merchant of Venice as observant about the policing of homosexual desire as Robert Andersons Tea and Sympathy. Acting Gay offers a witty and observant commentary on how homosexuality operates within the theatrical scene and will provide a us eful jumping-off place for critics of a more systematic bent. If the studies of de Jongh and Clum read like dress rehearsal for a future engendered critique of Western theatrical practice, David Savrans Communists, Cowboys and Queers is opening night. Deploying the critical strategies of New Historicism, feminist criticism and gay studies, Savran offers the most brilliant and sustained analysis of work by Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams to date. For Savran, Miller functions as the theatres version of a Cold War liberal, while Williams performs the role of skittish radical. He argues that Millers writings reinforce, albeit nervously and guiltily, the stereotypes Cold War culture presented as the natural roles of men and women, while simultaneously revealing the anxieties circulating around both male and female sexuality. Williams, on the other hand, challenges these same constructions by offering subtly subversive models of gender and sexuality. Utopian allegories   Savrans historically grounded focus on the politics of masculinity leads him to a revaluation of often neglected texts and a defamiliarization of old standards. His reading of Millers screenplay for The Misfits as the most far-reaching of the playwrights explorations of male heroism and female resistance would seem far-fetched outside the precise cultural context Savran provides for his analysis. His discussion of After the Fall and its reception offers a powerful corrective to the usual denunciation of that work. For Savran, Tennessee Williams is ultimately a literary and theatrical surrealist whose works are to be read and produced less as depictions of character or situation than as utopian allegories of (un)imaginable sexual and political bliss. This Williams is the contemporary of Breton, Barthes and Foucault, not of Miller, Inge and Anderson. Savran offers a convincing critique of those who accuse the early Williams of offering gay characters in female drag, then goes on to investigate what for him is the radical potential of such comparatively neglected works as In the Bar of a Tokyo Hotel and Moise and the World of Reason. In its recontextualization of the work of Miller and Williams within the gender politics of the Cold War period, Savrans book successfully fulfills Adrienne Richs dictum that We need to know the writing of the past, and know it differently than we have ever known it; not to pass on a tradition but to break its hold over us.