African American Religion Essay Example for Free

African American Religion Essay Before Africans were brought to America during the slave trade, they had their own culture and society. They had their own language and dance. They also had their own religion. History tells us that the Europeans justified their abuse toward the Africans as helping them become more civilized because the Africans lifestyle appeared primal to them and not as developed and industrialized as theirs. What is often overlooked is that even though Africans were taken from Africa and Americanized and have been stripped of their religion, culture, language and even their name, the very essence of the African as a people did not go away. Some African American slaves rejected Christianity’s religion because they saw it as the â€Å"white man’s religion†. History tells us American Slave Masters abused the Africans by whipping them like animals and by treating them inhumane. The fact that these slave masters wanted the African American to worship their god was unacceptable for some because they could not fathom why they should worship a god who allowed people to be so badly treated. Some Africans accepted Christianity’s religion and faith by identifying with Jesus Christ, the son of God who according to the Bible was innocent of sin and yet he was beaten, bruised and crucified for the sins of the world. Some African Americans wanted to remain faithful to their heritage yet did not agree with the conjure practices. Seth Holly’s character is a good example of conforming to the economic prosperity of America which was founded by Christians. White Christians enforced Christian beliefs, values, and some practices based on the Euro American Christian interpretation of Christian text. Seth developed a kind of hatred for his own people proving that he has adopted the practices of white America in the early 1900s. â€Å"Niggers coming up here from that old backwoods†¦ coming up here from the country carrying Bibles and guitars looking for freedom. † Seth says. â€Å"They got a rude awakening† (6). Seth signifies the African American who resents assimilation to the white American culture. But, at the same time, he too attempts to connect with his heritage by simply allowing Bynum to live in his home and bless it with his conjures rituals. Seth also participates in an African dance ritual called the Juba. Bynum’s character is introduced by practicing conjure rituals. He cuts open pigeons and spreads its blood onto him as a type of cleansing to communicate with spirits. Bynum represents the African American who chose to remain faithful to the religion of his heritage. Others who have chosen the faith of Christianity view conjure rituals as evil, witchcraft, or demonic. Some African Americans wanted to remain faithful to their heritage yet did not agree with conjure practices anymore. Loomis walks in on the juba dance and goes into a trance after dinner at the boarding house. He had a vision of skeletons emerge from a body of water. â€Å"Loomis: I done seen bones rise up out the water. Rise up and walk across the water. Bones walking on top of the water† (53). Loomis recognizes through the vision, his state of ignorance to the knowledge that will lead him to the new way of thinking. Bynum serves as a supporting character reacting to Loomis’s trance. â€Å"Bynum: They walking around here now. Mens. Just like you and me. Come right up out the water† (56). Loomis’s trance and Bynum’s interpretation of it is a turning point in the story. The skeletons coming from the bottom of the sea in Loomis’s vision represent the slave ships, the disorientation experienced by the slaves during emancipation, and the confusion of his release from Joe Turner. Both Loomis and Bynum have tapped into their ancestral religion. The difference between the two is that Bynum represents the African who never renounced his religion and Loomis is the African-American who turned from conjure religion and converted to the faith of Christianity. After Joe turner took his life away from him, Loomis questioned his Christian faith and his identity. By walking in on the ancestral ritual of the Juba dance, Loomis literally walked into what he had actually been looking for, his religion, consequently, his ancestral identity and this is why he fell into the trance. Throughout the play conjures is encompasses four generations; Bynum’s father, Bynum, Loomis, and the neighbor boy Reuben. Reuben’s vision is of Seth’s mother by the pigeon coop, she encourages Reuben to release the caged pigeons. Wilson writes in a way that leads the reader to believe that Loomis needs to find his missing wife. Martha Pentecost is not the one who was lost; Loomis was the one who was lost, wondering around from town to town, searching. Loomis came into the state of belief when Bynum helped him translate his vision. That vision represented Loomis going back to his ancestral conjure religion. Loomis needed to find Martha Pentecost simply to say good-bye to her and their life former together. Up until this point of the story, I believed that Loomis needed to find his wife so they could live out the rest of their lives as a happy free family with their daughter. However, it is made pretty obvious this was never Loomis’s intentions. â€Å"That goodbye kept me out on the road searching,† Loomis says, â€Å"now that I see your face I can say my goodbye and make my own world† (90). Martha Pentecost, a woman of Christian faith, represents the African who assimilated into white America’s culture and Loomis needed to find her to say good-bye to her and the Christian faith. Martha stands by her Christian faith by accusing Loomis â€Å"you done gone over to the devil† (91). White man’s religion believed that conjure was evil or the way of the devil. Loomis finds it easier to reject her for her Christian beliefs. â€Å"Loomis: Great big old white man†¦your Mr. Jesus Christ. Standing there with a whip in one hand and a tote board in another, them niggers swimming in a sea of cotton† (92). Loomis proves with his statement, his version of a bible story that differed from other African Americans but was similar to that of the white man who believed that they were on a level below God and the African’s were beneath them, African’s were one third of a person. Loomis now believes that if African’s are going to be free then they have to take charge of their own destiny. Martha Pentecost represents the African American’s religion, she identifies that Loomis needs to â€Å"be washed in the blood of the lamb† (92) and â€Å"you done gone over to the devil. (91) Through class lessons I learned that African American slaves compared themselves with stories in the bible to instill hope of a life free from oppression, violence, and bondage. Jesus according to the bible was innocent of sin and yet he was beaten, bruised and crucified for the sins of the world. The hope of reigning in heave with Jesus is considered the ultimate reward for suffering life’s trials and tribulations. It is the faith of the African Americans who accepted Christianity religion. Blacks trusted in the Lord instead of man. America was Egypt in the exodus story and as long as the enslaving and oppressing took place America would face the same wrath as Egypt. â€Å"Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. † The bible was depended on in justifying and motivation rebellion for the blacks and used as a tool to keep blacks enslaved by the whites. African Americans used sermons, song, and prayer to convey and teach their message of travail and triumph of Israel. Some African Americans could not get past the treatment from the white people that called themselves Christians and as a result they rejected Christianity. Selig’s role suggests that the link between characters is the acquisition of material goods. Selig admits that his ancestors have always made their living pursuing African Americas; his great grandfather transported slaves from Africa, his father captured runaway slaves and returned them to their masters for a reward, and Selig locates displaced people for a fee. Selig attains his ecstasy through consumer capitalism, through the selling of material goods. African Americans are objects for exploitation and exchange in the new economy. He binds African Americans to the economic system, demanding payment of his services and products which necessitates subsistence labor by taking them from one construction site or work site to another, similar to a temporary employment agency today. You pay for an employee to work for some time, but Selig is getting paid by the person looking for work or a ride to a chance of freedom. Selig cannot find a person that has not purchased a dustpan from him because he keeps the names of his customers. Seth is determined to achieve material success, he has very little patience for African Americans migrating north looking for the same prosperity that he desires. Seth is very demanding of his patrons, insisting on advance payment in full, and is preoccupied with maintaining a respectable house. â€Å"It’s hard enough now without all that ignorant kind of acting. Ever since slavery got over with there ain’t been nothing but foolish-acting niggers. Word get out they need men to work in the mill and put in these roads†¦ and niggers drop everything and head north looking for freedom. †(5, 6) Seth wants to blend in with the white man’s world; therefore he keeps a link with Selig by negotiating the manufacturing and sale of dustpans. Seth does not have any idea of what it would be like to be a slave, as he was born free in the North and was educated. He demonstrates his education with his math calculation when dealing with the boarding house patrons and the quick notation of him letting Selig know that he is trying to overcharge him for the dust pan materials. Educational differences played a role in tension with Southern blacks, most of who were forbidden from learning to read, saw religion as a matter of oral tradition and immediate experience and emotion. Northerner blacks, stressed that one could not truly be Christian unless they was able to read the Bible and understand it. This play denies individual worth and identity for some of Wilson’s characters. To be defrauded of the products of one’s labor or to see that creation diminished, like with Jeremy and the guitar contest, is to be denied a reflection of individual worth and identity. If people have been separated from this truth of individual worth and identity through oppression their capacity to bond with one another, form friendships, or couples, families are undermined. Social alienation in Wilson’s characters are expressed in their stores of broken relationships, uncertainty, or suspicion that they feel toward one another. â€Å"Seth: Something ain’t setting right with that fellow, Bynum. He’s one of them mean-looking niggers look like he done killed somebody gambling over a quarter. †(20) Connection between oppression, alienation from self and inability to form bonds with others is displayed in the character of Loomis. Joe Turner’s ability to oppress Loomis carried a judgment of non-worth. â€Å"Loomis: He told me I was worthless. Worthless is something you throw away. Something you don’t bother with† (73) Turners judgment of worthlessness forced Loomis to accept the reality of the white man’s power; he was marked as â€Å"one of Joe Turners niggers and forced to forget his song. †(71) Being alienated from himself and displaced with his relation to the world, Loomis is unable to establish bonds with people around him. The oppression encountered by Wilson’s characters is material or economic, that oppression is spiritual as well in the capacity to deprive the individual of a sense of himself or his unique song. The reawakening of Loomis after his encounter with cultural wisdom is not the self discovery of an average African American but creation of a new source of cultural wisdom, a new African holy man. Wilson uses many metaphors throughout the play. The song is a metaphor for Loomis’s identity and the African American cultural identity. Music is a large part of African American identity, so it makes since that in search of one’s identity they are searching for their song. The boarding house serves as an inn for traveling folk, but the tenants actually receive a form of healing during their stay. Tenants get direction and guidance from Bertha and Bynum. The shiny man that Bynum is in search for signifies African American independence. The man that Bynum met on the road was an independent African American, just as Loomis was freed by his past when he cleansed himself in his own blood. â€Å"Bynum: Herald Loomis, you shining! You shining like new money! †(94) Loomis has dismissed that the blood of Christ can wash away his sins and make him the man he used to be, but by washing himself in his own blood he has sacrificed the old life to begin his new journey on his terms. Bynum’s shining man has been found, meaning his work is complete; he has passed his powers on to the next generation, Loomis. â€Å"They tell me Joe Turner’s come and Gone† is a song that is sung by Bynum, when I first read the story I thought that the meaning was came and now he is dead however, the second time I read the play I realized that it meant that Joe Turner has come and snatched the men and now he is now gone. August Wilson uses symbolism in the play as a very important part in conveying the meaning of the story. Wilsons use of symbolism is demonstrated through Mr. Wilsons use of the road, Martha Pentecost, and Herald Loomis. Symbolic importance is give to the word freedom. The word freedom has instilled hope into the lives of African Americans: during slavery, hope for the release from bondage; after emancipation, the right to be educated, employed, and to move about freely; twentieth century, social, political, and economic justice. Freedom has always stood for the absence of any restraint, because God made all men from his image. There are a number of characters that travel around searching for their place in the world. Mattie, mentions that she keeps on looking, seems like she just keeps starting over, I ain’t never found no place for me to fit. † (76) Reuben tells Zonia, when he finds out that she is leaving the boarding house in search of her mom, â€Å"when I get grown, I come looking for you. †(84) Jeremy does not seem to care much when he loses his job because, â€Å"don’t make me no difference. There’s a big road out there, I can always get my guitar and find me a place to stay. I ain’t planning on staying in one place for too long noway. † (64) Martha Reverend Tolliver moved the Church up north because of the trouble the church was having. When the Civil War finally brought freedom to previously enslaved African Americans, the task of organizing religious communities was only one element of the larger need to create new lives, to reunite families, to find jobs, and to figure out what it would mean to live in the United States as citizens rather than property. August Wilson’s play, Joe Turner’s come and Gone, examines African Americans search for their cultural identity following slavery. Bibliography Murphy, L. G. (2000). Down By the Riverside. New York: New Yourk University Press. Wilson, A. (1988). Joe Turner Come and Gone. New York: Penguin Group.

Friendship A Deeper Look Into Relationships Sociology Essay

Friendship A Deeper Look Into Relationships Sociology Essay Like armor, good friends make us almost invincible, capable of warding off the blows life occasionally deals us. The need for social bonding and friendship is established at birth and evolves from then on. Although it is recognized and learned at a very young age, friendship can have a different meaning for everyone. You may choose your friends based on affection, disclosure, or shared values and interests. Since friendship is so common and natural, the variations and types of friendships as well as the different ways we interact within those friendships, are often over-looked and frequently not paid attention to. Within this paper I will examine the main types of friendships human-beings commonly experience, same-sex friendships and cross-sex friendships. I will also be examining how we interact within these friendships, the similarities and differences between them, and will be providing examples to help you gain a better insight on the topics. Since friendship is such a prevalent part of life, it is important to fully understand why we form the relationships we do and what makes these relationships work for us; because by being aware of how different friendships function may help your relationships be more successful in the future. Same-Sex Friendships Friendship in general has been the focus of a considerable amount of studies; however most of these studies have mainly focused on same-sex friendships. A same-sex friendship is a relationship where both individuals have the same sexual origin. This would constitute male-male and female-female friendships. This is the most common type of friendship women and men will usually experience and there are many similarities and differences discussed between the two types of relationships. Differences A variety of differences have been investigated within male-male and female-female friendships, but by far the most prominent difference studied would be that womens friendships tend to be more expressive, emotional, intimate, richer, and include more self-disclosure than mens; whereas mens tend to be more instrumental and are task, goal-, and activity-oriented (Wright Scalon, 1991; Monsour, 1992; Duck Wright, 1993; Brehm, 1992). Womens friendships are represented as intimate relationships in which sharing feelings and talking are the most prevalent activities. Mens friendships are represented as ones in which sharing activities such as sports or work dominate interaction (Walker, 1994). Womens friendships are face to face: they talk, cry together, share secrets, and that is what makes their friendship satisfying. Mens friendships are side by side and almost always revolve around some type of activity. For men, it is the doing, not the talking, that makes a friendship close (Floyd, 2009). The talking that does go on within female-female relationships compared to male-male relationships could not be more different. Women will almost always exchange feelings and talk about problems and men will discuss sports, work, or what is happening in their immediate lives. An important difference between same-sex friendships is that female ones tend to be more oriented towards emotional intimacy than male friendships (Dickens Perlman, 1981). Men will generally be less physically affectionate with other men (hugging, putting arms around each other, kissing) because they know that this behavior goes against cultural norms. While taking gender roles into consideration, women are technically raised to be more open and nurturing, whereas men are raised to be masculine and competitive. Movie Examples One example of media that displays how women interact within female friendships is the hit movie Sex and the City, starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis and Cynthia Nixon. This movie follows four best friends in Manhattan, who share their travels in life and love and their daily discussions of romance and sexuality. In the movie Sarah Jessica Parker plays Carrie Bradshaw, A New York writer who has a column on sex, love, and relationships. She is finally getting married to her on-again off-again boyfriend of years. When he stands her up the day of her wedding, its her three girlfriends who are left to console and support her, being there for her every step of the way through a long, dramatic recovery process. With the help of her girlfriends, Carries life eventually returns to normality. As they are sitting discussing their hardships and the importance of friendship, Samantha says, We made a deal ages ago. Men, babies, doesnt matter. Were soul mates! Another example of media that displays how men interact within male friendships is the movie Old School, starring Will Ferrell, Luke Wilson and Vince Vaughn. Luke Wilson plays Mitch, a man with a good job, a house, and a healthy intimate relationship; or so he thinks. Until one day Mitch catches an early flight home to find out his girlfriend has not exactly been faithful over the years. When Mitch addresses his friends, Frank and Beanie, they discuss how they have all come to a crossroads in their lives. They can choose to be responsible adults with wives, families and steady jobs; or they can postpone adulthood in favor of returning to college and start a fraternity with all the fun and none of the education. Instead of the three friends addressing their problems head on or helping each other come to terms with the complications in their lives, they closet their feelings and do not find a proper solution. Now, the majority of their time is consumed in the activity of starting a fra ternity together, centered on drinking, women and living a carefree life. As you can see, these movies depict same-sex friendships between females and same-sex friendships between males very differently. Similarities Gender differences that exist between male-male friendships and female-female friendships have clearly been demonstrated in the literature but lately, scholars have questioned its magnitude (Fehr, 2000). Research emphasizes the fact that both men and women look for more or less the same things from their same-sex friendships, they just accomplish getting it in different ways. Male friendships are not inferior to female friendships. Men may not be physically or emotionally expressive, but they also derive great support from their friendships (Zaslow, 2010). The fact that womens and mens relationships differ does not mean that friendships are more important to one sex than the other. It is believed that because women share and express feelings more openly with each other, womens friendships are more satisfying than mens are. Research has demonstrated that women and men report equal levels of closeness in their same-sex friendships (Floyd, 1995). What do differ between the male-male and female-female relationships are simply the characteristics that make those specific friendships close. For women, the key characteristic is shared conversation; for men, its shared activity (Floyd, 2009). Movie Examples Two movies that express similar female-female friendships and male-male friendships is The Sandlot and Now and Then. The Sandlot, starring Tom Guiry as Scotty Smalls and Mike Vitar as Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez, is about the summer escapades of a group of local baseball buddies. These small town baseball players are young neighborhood friends who grew up together. They also all have one common interest that keeps their friendships thriving, their love of baseball, which is what their summer adventures are mainly focused around. These boys are all very different, and throughout the movie are not physically or emotionally expressive towards one another, but remain friends through the years simply because of the shared activities they enjoy doing with one another. Later on in the movie, after the boys made the transition into adulthood, Benny Rodriguez becomes a professional baseball player and Scotty Smalls is a sports commentator for one of his games. After Benny hits a home run ball to win the game he looks up at Scotty and gives him a wave and Scotty looks back at him smiling and nods with approval. These shows the men are still friends from childhood, and their friendship is still mainly focused around the shared activity and the memories they have playing together many years ago. The movie Now and Then, starring Christina Ricci, Thora Birch, Gabby Hoffman and Ashley Aston Moore, is about four inseparable childhood friends who experience one of the most eventful and dramatic summers of their lives together. They are also neighborhood friends who grew up together in the same area. Their summer started out normal with attempting to save up money to buy a tree house and tell-all truth or dare sessions, and then suddenly their not-so-innocent world of childhood adventure was cracked by the reality of divorce and a death in one of their families. Although they are young, they are there for each other in overcoming these tragedies together and giving each other a shoulder to lean on through it all. Experiencing these hardships together makes their bonds stronger than ever and leads them to make a pact one summer day stating that they would always be there for each other, no matter what happened in life, all for one and one for all. They stayed true to their pact lat er in life, and remained in contact. They met back in their hometown whenever necessary to talk, to cry, or just share laughs and reminisce about old memories when they needed a friend. These girls remained friends later in life not because of the activities they shared together, but mainly because of the emotional bond they developed with one another. These two movies depict similar same-sex relationships because they are both focused on childhood friends in which a strong bond still remains throughout adulthood, but the reasons of why the bonds still remain later in life differ from the female friendships to the male friendships. Cross-Sex Friendships A cross-sex friendship is where one individual in the relationship is a man and one individual in the relationship is a woman. Cross-sex friendships are a relatively new concept and have only existed for about 100 years (Swain, 1992). Changes in our society have made the existence of cross-sex friendships possible. These friendships can be difficult to establish, and pose a number of different challenges than same-sex friendships. Problems Cross-sex friendships can be difficult at times. OMeara (1989) presented four challenges that occur at some point during a friendship between two individuals of the opposite sex. First, the individuals need to confront the emotional bond that exists between them. They need to address the bond, and clearly distinguish between each other what it is. The feelings that exist between two cross-sex friends can be confusing and hard to establish between romantic or non-romantic feelings. This is important to address in the beginning of your relationship due to the fact if it goes ignored, it can complicate your relationship in the future. The second challenge is the added concern of sexual attraction (OMeara 1989). Sexuality becomes an issue in cross-sex friendships. Added sexual dimension in a friendship can cause problems, for this reason many make the decision not to involve sexuality in their friendship in order to preserve the relationship. The third challenge that OMeara (1989) presents is inequality and power. He states that men are often seen as dominant in our society. This can often pose problems in cross-sex friendships because the tw o individuals must find a way to feel as though they are equal. The fourth challenge described by OMeara (1989) is public relationships. He states that cross-sex friends often have to deal with how they are viewed by others, which results in them often having to defend the status of their friendship. Many find it difficult to accept the fact that a man and woman can have a platonic relationship. Movie Example A movie that accurately describes some of the problems that arise from cross-sex friendships is My Best Friends Wedding, starring Julia Roberts, Dermont Mulroney and Cameron Diaz. In this film Julia Roberts plays Julianne Porter a New York food critic who has a longtime male friend Michael ONeil (Dermont Mulroney). They have remained friends since college and lead what seemed to be a very normal platonic relationship. They talked often about relationships, family, and enjoyed doing many of the same activities together. That all changed one day when Michael called Julianne to tell her he had recently become engaged. While taking this information in she realizes she loves Michael herself and sets out to sabotage his wedding with only days before the ceremony. Her tactics fail and Julianne finally has to accept she has lost her love and longtime friend to another woman. Successes There are also reasons that cross-sex friendships are successful and rewarding relationships for both parties, although it is not as common as the problems and challenges that can arise from these friendships. Some researchers have proposed that male individuals initiate cross-sex friendships to have access to sex and females initiate cross-sex friendships for protection (Bleske-Rechek Buss, 2001). Some cross-sex friends invite sexuality into the friendship. The added sexual dimension in a friendship can be a pleasant aspect within the relationship, but can also cause many problems if you are not careful. Cross-sex relationships are valued because they provide a chance for men to develop friendships with women because they are looking for more emotional and physical closeness. They may want to develop a friendship in search for more self-disclosure and more conversation about personal subjects. Chances are they do not experience this within their male friendships because they assume their male friends will be of little assistance or they fear seeming effeminate. Women, on the other hand, might be looking to form friendships with men in order to have a relationship that requires less intimacy, less personal talk, and more of an activity-based friendship. Movie Example Although I am sure examples of successful cross-sex friendships exist in reality, the majority of cross-sex friendships displayed in the media almost always end in a problematic situation. Usually one member of a platonic friendship ends up wanting to be romantically involved with the other. Therefore it was challenging to find a valid example of a successful cross-sex friendship, and I did not succeed in uncovering one. Conclusion After discussing the similarities and differences within same-sex friendships, as well as cross-sex friendships and how they can be rewarding or problematic; I hope that you have gained a broader understanding within the complicated subject of friendship. It is inevitable that we all need and strive for friendship, and by looking deeper into a certain area of friendship you may find it can actually answer many commonly asked questions or help resolve a problem you may be having within one of your own personal relationships. This should assist you in constructing your meaning of friendship as well as determining exactly how you are influenced by your friendships and how your friendships are influenced by you.

System to Filter Unwanted Messages from OSN User Walls

System to Filter Unwanted Messages from OSN User Walls M.Renuga Devi, G.Seetha lakshmi, M.Sarmila Abstract—One fundamental issue in today’s Online Social Networks (OSNs) is to give users the ability to control the messages posted on their own private space to avoid that unwanted content is displayed. Up to now, OSNs provide little support to this requirement. To fill the gap, in this paper, we propose a system allowing OSN users to have a direct control on the messages posted on their walls. This is achieved through a flexible rule-based system, that allows users to customize the filtering criteria to be applied to their walls, and a Machine Learning-based soft classifier automatically labeling messages in support of content-based filtering. 1. INTRODUCTION ONLINE Social Networks (OSNs) are today one of the most popular interactive medium to communicate, share, and disseminate a considerable amount of human life information. Daily and continuous communications imply the exchange of several types of content, including free text, image, audio, and video data. According to Facebookstatistics1 average user creates 90 pieces of content each month, whereas more than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news, stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month. OSNs there is the possibility of posting or commenting other posts on particular public/private areas, called in general walls. Face book allows users to state who is allowed to insert messages in their walls (i.e., friends, friends of friends, or defined groups of friends). The aim of the present work is therefore to propose and experimentally evaluate an automated system, called Filtered Wall (FW), able to filter unwanted messages from OSN user walls. We exploit Machine Learning (ML) text categorization techniques. The major efforts in building a robust short text classifier (STC) are concentrated in the extraction and selection of a set of characterizing and discriminant features. We base the overall short text classification strategy on Radial Basis Function Networks (RBFN) for their proven capabilities in acting as soft classifiers, in managing noisy data and intrinsically vague classes. We insert the neural model within a hierarchical two level classification strategy. In the first level, the RBFN categorizes short messages as Neutral and Non-neutral; in the second stage, Non-neutral messages are classified producing gradual estimates of appropriateness to each of the considered category. The system provides a powerful rule layer exploiting a flexible language to specify Filtering Rules (FRs). In addition, the system provides the support for user-defined Black Lists (BLs), that is, lists of users that are temporarily prevented to post any kind of messages on a user wall. 2. RELATED WORK The main contribution of this paper is the design of a system providing customizable content-based message filtering for OSNs, based on ML techniques. As we have pointed out in the introduction, to the best of our knowledge, we are the first proposing such kind of application for OSNs. However, our work has relationships both with the state of the art in content-based filtering, as well as with the field of policy-based personalization for OSNs and, more in general, web contents. 2.1 Content-Based Filtering Information filtering systems are designed to classify a stream of dynamically generated information dispatched asynchronously by an information producer and present to the user those information that are likely to satisfy his/her requirements. In content-based filtering, each user is assumed to operate independently. As a result, a content-based filtering system selects information items based on the correlation between the content of the items and the user preferences as opposed to a collaborative filtering system that chooses items based on the correlation between people with similar preferences. Documents processed in content-based filtering are mostly textual in nature and this makes content-based filtering close to text classification. Single label, binary classification, partitioning incoming documents into relevant and non-relevant categories. More complex filtering systems include multi label text categorization automatically labeling messages into partial thematic categories. Content-based filtering is mainly based on the use of the ML paradigm according to which a classifier is automatically induced by learning from a set of pre-classified examples. Several experiments prove that Bag-of-Words (BoW) approaches yield good performance and prevail in general over more sophisticated text representation that may have superior semantics but lower statistical quality. The application of content-based filtering on messages posted on OSN user walls poses additional challenges given the short length of these messages other than the wide range of topics that can be discussed. 3. FILTERED WALL ARCHITECTURE The architecture in support of OSN services is a three-tier structure (Fig. 1). The first layer, called Social Network Manager (SNM), commonly aims to provide the basic OSN functionalities (i.e., profile and relationship management), whereas the second layer provides the support for external Social Network Applications (SNAs).The supported SNAs may in turn require an additional layer for their needed Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). The core components of the proposed system are the Content-Based Messages Filtering (CBMF) and the Short Text Classifier modules. The latter component aims to classify messages according to a set of categories. In contrast, the first component exploits the message categorization provided by the STC module to enforce the FRs specified by the user. The possible final publication can be summarized as follows: 1. After entering the private wall of one of his/her contacts, the user tries to post a message, which is intercepted by FW. 2. A ML-based text classifier extracts metadata from the content of the message. 3. FW uses metadata provided by the classifier, together with data extracted from the social graph and users’ profiles, to enforce the filtering and BL rules. 4. Depending on the result of the previous step, the message will be published or filtered by FW. 4. SHORT TEXT CLASSIFIER Established techniques used for text classification work well on data sets with large documents such as newswires corpora but suffer when the documents in the corpus are short. In this context, critical aspects are the definition of a set of characterizing and discriminant features allowing the representation of underlying concepts and the collection of a complete and consistent set of supervised examples. We approach the task by defining a hierarchical two-level strategy assuming that it is better to identify and eliminate â€Å"neutral† sentences, and then classify â€Å"non-neutral† sentences. The first-level task is conceived as a hard classification in which short texts are labeled with crisp Neutral and Non-neutral labels. The second-level soft classifier acts on the crisp set of non-neutral short texts. 4.1 Text Representation The extraction of an appropriate set of features by which representing the text of a given document is a crucial task strongly affecting the performance of the overall classification strategy. We consider three types of features, BoW, Document properties (Dp) and Contextual Features (CF). Text representation using endogenous knowledge has a good general applicability; however, in operational settings, it is legitimate to use also exogenous knowledge, i.e., any source of information outside the message body but directly or indirectly related to the message itself. We introduce CF modeling information that characterizes the environment where the user is posting. These features play a key role in deterministically understanding the semantics of the messages. In the BoW representation, terms are identified with words. Dp features are heuristically assessed; their definition stems from intuitive considerations, domain specific criteria and in some cases required trial-and-error procedures. Bad words: They are computed similarly to the correct words feature, where the set K is a collection of â€Å"dirty words† for the domain language. Correct words: It expresses the amount of terms tk 2 T K, where tk is a term of the considered document dj and K is a set of known words for the domain language. Capital words: It expresses the amount of words mostly written with capital letters, calculated as the percentage of words within the message, having more than half of the characters in capital case. Punctuations characters: It is calculated as the percentage of the punctuation characters over the total number of characters in the message. For example, the value of the feature for the document â€Å"Hello!!! How’re u doing?† is 5/24. Exclamation marks: It is calculated as the percentage of exclamation marks over the total number of punctuation characters in the message. Referring to the aforementioned document, the value is 3/5. Question marks: It is calculated as the percentage of question marks over the total number of punctuations characters in the message. Referring to the aforementioned document, the value is 1/5. 4.2 Machine Learning-Based Classification We address short text categorization as a hierarchical two level classification process. The first-level classifier performs a binary hard categorization that labels messages as Neutral and Non-neutral. The first-level filtering task facilitates the subsequent second-level task in which a finer-grained Classification is performed. The second-level classifier performs a soft-partition of Non-neutral messages assigning a given message a gradual membership to each of the non-neutral classes. Among the variety of multiclass ML models well suited for text classification, we choose the RBFN model for the experimented competitive behavior with respect to other state-of-the-art classifiers. RFBNs have a single hidden layer of processing units with local, restricted activation domain: a Gaussian function is commonly used, but any other locally tunable function can be used. RBFN main advantages are that classification function is nonlinear, the model may produce confidence values and it may be robust to outliers; drawbacks are the potential sensitivity to input parameters, and potential overtraining sensitivity. The first-level classifier is then structured as a regular RBFN. In the second level of the classification stage, we introduce a modification of the standard use of RBFN. The collection of pre-classified messages presents some critical aspects greatly affecting the performance of the overall classification strategy. To work well, a ML-based classifier needs to be trained with a set of sufficiently complete and consistent pre-classified data. The difficulty of satisfying this constraint is essentially related to the subjective character of the interpretation process with which an expert decides whether to classify a document under a given category. A quantitative evaluation of the agreement among experts is then developed to make transparent the level of inconsistency under which the classification process has taken place. 5. FILTERING RULES AND BLACKLIST MANAGEMENT In this section, we introduce the rule layer adopted for filtering unwanted messages. We start by describing FRs, and then we illustrate the use of BLs. In what follows, we model a social network as a directed graph, where each node corresponds to a network user and edges denote relationships between two different users. In particular, each edge is labeled by the type of the established relationship (e.g., friend of, colleague of, parent of) and, possibly, the corresponding trust level, which represents how much a given user considers trustworthy with respect to that specific kind of relationship the user with whom he/ she is establishing the relationship. 5.1 Filtering Rules In defining the language for FRs specification, we consider three main issues that, in our opinion, should affect a message filtering decision. First of all, in OSNs like in everyday life, the same message may have different meanings and relevance based on who writes it. As a consequence, FRs should allow users to state constraints on message creators. Given the social network Scenario, creators may also be identified by exploiting information on their social graph. Definition 1 (Creator specification): A creator specification creator Spec implicitly denotes a set of OSN users. It can have one of the following forms, possibly combined. Definition2 (Filtering rule): A filtering rule FR is a tuple (author, creator Spec, content Spec, action), where author is the user who specifies the rule; creator Spec is a creator specification, specified according to Definition 1: Content Spec is a Boolean expression defined on content constraints of the form à °C; mlÞ, where C is a class of the first or second level and ml is the minimum membership level threshold required for class C to make the constraint satisfied; action 2fblock; notifying denotes the action to be performed by the system on the messages matching content Spec and created by users identified by creator Spec. In general, more than a filtering rule can apply to the same user. A message is therefore published only if it is not blocked by any of the filtering rules that apply to the message creator. Note moreover, that it may happen that a user profile does not contain a value for the attribute(s) referred by a FR (e.g., the profile does not specify a value for the attribute Hometown whereas the FR blocks all the messages authored by users coming from a specific city). 5.2 Online Setup Assistant for FRs Thresholds As mentioned in the previous section, we address the problem of setting thresholds to filter rules, by conceiving and implementing within FW, an Online Setup Assistant procedure. 5.3 Blacklists A further component of our system is a BL mechanism to avoid messages from undesired creators, independent from their contents. BLs are directly managed by the system, which should be able to determine who are the users to be inserted in the BL and decide when users retention in the BL is finished. To enhance flexibility, such information are given to the system through a set of rules, hereafter called BL rules. Such rules are not defined by the SNMP; therefore, they are not meant as general high-level directives to be applied to the whole community. Similar to FRs, our BL rules make the wall owner able to identify users to be blocked according to their profiles as well as their relationships in the OSN. Therefore, by means of a BL rule, wall owners are, for example, able to ban from their walls users they do not directly know (i.e., with which they have only indirect relationships), or users that are friend of a given person as they may have a bad opinion of this person. 6. EVALUATION In this section, we illustrate the performance evaluation study we have carried out the classification and filtering modules. We start by describing the data set. 6.1 Problem and Data Set Description The analysis of related work has highlighted the lack of an publicly available benchmark for comparing different approaches to content-based classification of OSN short texts. 6.2 Short Text Classifier Evaluation 6.2.1 Evaluation Metrics Two different types of measures will be used to evaluate the effectiveness of first-level and second-level classifications. In the first level, the short text classification procedure is evaluated on the basis of the contingency table approach. In particular, the derived well-known Overall Accuracy (OA) index capturing the simple percent agreement between truth and classification results, is complemented with the Cohen’s KAPPA (K) coefficient thought to be a more robust measure taking into account the agreement occurring by chance . At second level, we adopt measures widely accepted in the Information Retrieval and Document Analysis field, that is, Precision (P), that permits to evaluate the number of false positives, Recall (R), that permits to evaluate the number of false negatives, and the overall metric F-Measure (F_), defined as the harmonic mean between the above two indexes. 6.2.2 Numerical Results By trial and error, we found a quite good parameter configuration for the RBFN learning model. The best value for the M parameter, that determines the number of Basis Function, is heuristically addressed to N=2, where N is the number of input patterns from the data set. 6.2.3 Comparison Analysis The lack of benchmarks for OSN short text classification makes problematic the development of a reliable comparative analysis. However, an indirect comparison of our method can be done with work that show similarities or complementary aspects with our solution. 6.3 Overall Performance and Discussion In order to provide an overall assessment of how effectively the system applies a FR. This table allows us to estimate the Precision and Recall of our FRs, Let us suppose that the system applies a given rule on a certain message. In contrast, Recall has to be interpreted as the probability that, given a rule that must be applied over a certain message, the rule is really enforced. Results achieved by the content-based specification component, on the first-level classification, can be considered good enough and reasonably aligned with those obtained by well-known information filtering techniques. 7. DICOMFw DicomFW is a prototype Face book application8 that emulates a personal wall where the user can apply a simple combination of the proposed FR’s. Throughout the development of the prototype, we have focused our attention only on the FRs, leaving BL implementation as a future improvement. However, the implemented functionality is critical, since it permits the STC and CBMF components to interact. To summarize, our application permits to 1. View the list of users’ FWs; 2. View messages and post a new one on a FW; 3. Define FRs using the OSA tool. When a user tries to post a message on a wall, he/ she receive an alerting message if it is blocked by FW. 8 CONCLUSIONS In this paper, we have presented a system to filter undesired messages from OSN walls. The system exploits a ML soft classifier to enforce customizable content-dependent FR’s. Fig. 3. DicomFW: A message filtered by the wall’s owner FRs We plan to study strategies and techniques limiting the inferences that a user can do on the enforced filtering rules with the aim of bypassing the filtering system, such as for instance randomly notifying a message that should instead be blocked, or detecting modifications to profile attributes that have been made for the only purpose of defeating the filtering system. REFERENCES [1] A. Adomavicius and G. Tuzhilin, â€Å"Toward the Next Generation of Recommender Systems: A Survey of the State-of-the-Art and Possible Extensions,† IEEE Trans. Knowledge and Data Eng., vol. 17, no. 6, pp. 734-749, June 2005. [2] M. Chua and H. Chen, â€Å"A Machine Learning Approach to Web Page Filtering Using Content and Structure Analysis,† Decision Support Systems, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 482-494, 2008.

Free Essays - The Tall Tale in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn :: Adventures Huckleberry Huck Finn Essays

The Tall Tale in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In Mark Twain's timeless American classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the narrator often finds himself in undesirable situations.   These situations, which are far-fetched even for the nineteenth-century, provide much humor to the novel and demonstrate Huck's cunning.   Huck's adept use of the tall tale becomes a survival tool on this adventure.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In the novel, Huck sees lies as more of a practical solution to problems than as a moral dilemma.   He rationalizes that he has "never seen anybody but lied, one time or another"   (1).   Unlike the lawless adventurer of the frontier, Huck does not use his knack for selfish purposes.   He, instead, uses his lies strictly as a means of escaping misfortune and never for his own profit.   At one point in the story, Huck uses his skill to fabricate a story that keeps a skiff of slave-hunters away from Jim:   " 'Well, there's five niggers run off to-night, up yonder above the head of the bend.   Is your man white or black?'...'He's white' "   (110).   Huck's tall tales are used for the survival of both Huck and Jim, and Jim knows this.      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Huck's stories are usually believed, but even when doubted, he manages to change his fib just enough to make it believable.   An example of this is when he is caught as a stow-away on a raft and his original story is not believed by the crew:   "Now, looky-here, you're scared, and so you talk wild.   Honest, now, do you live in a scowl, or is it a lie?" (106).   Huck then changes his story just enough to make it believable, displaying his unique ability to adjust his

Mercury :: essays research papers

Mercury   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Mercury is a metallic element that is a liquid at room temperature, it is one of the transition elements. Mercury's atomic number is 80. It is superconductive when cooled to within a few degrees of absolute zero. Mercury was once known as liquid silver or quicksilver which was studied by the alchemists. Mercury was first distinguished as an element by the French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in his experiment on the composition of air. At room temperature mercury is a shining, moving liquid that has a silvery-white color, and slightly volatile. Mercury remains a liquid over a wide temperature range. Mercury is a solid when given a pressure of 7640 atmospheres (5.8 million torrs). It dissolves in nitric or concentrated sulfuric acid but is resistant to alkalies. Mercury melts at -39C, boils at about 357C,and has a gravity of 13.5. The atomic weight of mercury is 200.59. Mercury comes in its pure form or combined with silver in small amounts. It is mostly found in the form of the sulfide. Mercury has many uses and is a very important element. A major use of mercury is in electrical equipment such as fluorescent lamps, and mercury batteries. Mercury is used in thermometers because the change in volume for each degree of rise or fall in temperature is the same. The use of mercury in the thermometer instead of alcohol was done by Gabriel Daniel Fahrenheit in 1714. It was also used in vacuum pumps, barometers, and electric rectifiers and switches. Mercury is used in a mercury-vapor lamps which are used as a source of ultraviolet rays in homes and for sterilizing water. Mercury-vapor is also used instead of steam in the boilers of some turbine engines. Mercury is sometimes used for amalgamation. Amalgamation is a metallurgical process that utilizes mercury to dissolve silver or gold to form an amalgam. This process has been largely supplanted by the cyanide process, in which gold or silver is

Information and communication technologies Essay

Even though the ICT sector is itself worth between 6-8% of the EU’s GDP in the last few years, ICTs are much more important than that figure suggests, as they are central for the current situation and development of much more spheres of contemporary society as a whole and of national economies in Europe in particular. Today ICTs play a crucial role in: improving competitiveness throughout the economy in the face of globalisation, by boosting innovation, creativity and efficiency; – scientific and technological development in various areas (including medicine and physics); – modernising sectors as diverse as education, security, energy and transport, and making Europe’s public sector more efficient; – tackling social challenges and improving quality of life and meeting the challenge of an ageing society. The EU policy framework for the information society and media – i2010- also promotes a European Information Society for all citizens[2]. Actions implemented under this i2010 priority aim to ensure that the benefits of the information society can be enjoyed by everyone (e-Inclusion). Areas of eInclusion policy, as defined in i2010, are: ageing, eAccessibility, broadband gap (overcoming the so called â€Å"digital divide†), inclusive eGovernment, digital literacy and culture. Actions under this priority also aim to encourage provision of better public services (eGovernment and eHealth). Here are the main spheres where ICTs have even bigger potential and are expected to develop in the short run: – Growth and Competitiveness ICT is a driver for productivity. The gains from ICT stem directly from investment in ICT, a fast growing and innovative ICT sector, and indirectly from improvements in business processes through wider use of these technologies across the economy. According to a study[3], the overall contribution to labour productivity growth from ICT investments and from technical progress in the production of ICT goods and services accounted for about 40% of EU labour productivity growth over the second half of the 1990s, compared with 60% in the US. The ICT sector, as a whole, performs fairly well in comparison with the US in terms of size (10% of GDP in the US against 8% in the EU, and also in productivity and employment creation), but less so in terms of contribution to R&D (in the US, ICT account for 30% of R&D). However, in these developments the EU has suffered from lower and delayed investments in ICT and, possibly, a less efficient use of ICT. Using Information and Communication Technologies can also further be used to manage finite natural resources and energy consumption much more efficiently, so that improving environmental protection without holding back economic development[4]. – Convergence More and more, convergence of technologies, infrastructure and applications is developing to provide consumers with an access to a great diversity of attractive services and rich media and content on a wide range of devices. Availability of content and services is becoming critical as the market moves to a phase where value-added services and content are key to revenue growth. The policy focus for 2010 will probably be the creation of a favourable environment that stimulates the competitive deployment of new converging services. – Broadband networks EU countries are global leader in high-speed internet. The number of fixed broadband internet connections in the EU keeps growing: 14 million more in 2008, reaching over 114 million in total. Denmark and the Netherlands are world leaders in broadband, with take up over 35% of population. They lead, along with Sweden, Finland, the UK, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany and France, the US, which was at 25% in July 2008. This has produced a critical mass and there is already evidence that markets for high-quality content and service development are taking off. Furthermore, new developments in wireless broadband have made spectrum availability crucial to new services and applications, and the efficient management of spectrum key to further broadband developments. Finally, the enhancement of interoperability and security are essential to and increase consumers’ choice and facilitate take-up. In the beginning of 2009 1 billion euro has been earmarked by the European Commission to help rural areas[5] get online, bring new jobs and help businesses grow. Competitiveness, job creation and protection, sustainable development, spatial balance and fighting the digital divide are the main goals that the broadband internet access could achieve. – Contents and information society services Convergence is creating a promising range of opportunities for the development of content and information society services making the most of ICT. The challenge for the single information space is to create the appropriate environment that will meet both business and consumer expectations while promoting the European content industry. This requires a competitive environment, where interoperability allows cross-platform competition and usage. This also requires a clear European regulatory framework with respect to content regulation and a secure environment for the distribution of digital content. Ensuring consumer acceptance pass by offering access to a great variety of flexible content and services adapted to user needs. Improving security and privacy as well as minor protection and media literacy are needed to allow European citizens to benefit fully from these content and services. – Innovation and research In order Europe to catch-up with the levels of productivity growth of other regions of the world, it should strengthen innovation and concentrate these efforts in those sectors, like the ICT, where the value added is the highest. A pre-requisite is to increase investment in research: at present the EU devotes only 18% of research expenditure to ICT whereas the leading OECD countries allocate more than 30%[6]. In absolute amounts, Europe’s investment in ICT research is only two thirds of that of Japan and one third of that seen in the USA. Research and development is making technology simpler to use, more available and affordable; providing new ICT-based solutions that are trusted, reliable, and adaptable to users’ contexts and preferences. However, research alone is not sufficient as it needs be consolidated by organisational innovation. ICT must be widely adopted and supported by adequate reorganisation of business processes and by a skilled workforce. Businesses in the EU are increasingly adopting advanced ICT and are engaging in on-line transactions but are lagging behind in the adoption of integrated business applications (particularly the European small and medium enterprises). – Skills and work The development of the ICT sector and the wide-spread diffusion and use of ICT in the economy and in the society bring opportunities for new employment and more creative and fulfilling jobs. Changing needs for ICT and e-Business skills (e-Skills) in the future heavily depend on innovation and the introduction of new technologies. The greatest challenge is to assess forward-looking innovations and understand what new skills will be needed, to be able to anticipate and manage changes and be effective, quick and efficient in creating new, innovative jobs. – e-Business Though nearly all enterprises are connected to the internet, a large section of the business community is only beginning to exploit the potential of ICT. E-commerce is expected to continue to grow rapidly. More efforts are needed to improve business processes in European enterprises and fully integrate ICT providing new opportunities to reduce their costs and improve performance. Factors which will contribute to increase e-Business include promotion of take-up of e-business solutions and best practices security, addressing privacy and security concerns, availability of content and new services, increase automation of business processes, acceptance of payment for content and services, e-invoicing and e-procurement. Public services Public services are at the heart of the European social model, playing a key role in growth, innovation and cohesion. There is increasing evidence that a better exploitation of ICT through combined improvement of facilities, working processes and skills can significantly enhance public service’s organisation provision. However, the potential remains unfulfilled due to technical, legal or organisational obstacles. For example, government services are widely available online but the demand is not sufficient and efficiency gains from back-office reorganisation are still largely underexploited. Specific challenges relate to friendly user-centric services, back-office streamlining, interoperability of key infrastructures and facilities, identity management, or privacy and trust. – e-Inclusion Increasing impact of ICT on social inclusion and participation creates new opportunities. Significant progress on ICT penetration across all EU regions and socio-demographic groups helps to decrease disparities. However, some specific challenges concern accessibility of ICT equipment and user-friendly interfaces, digital literacy or improved confidence and support for ICT use. Some important concerns are â€Å"design for all† of ICT equipment; human mediation and support for e-services; intuitive use of affordable value-added e-content and services accessible; and efficient solutions for threats to privacy, security and harmful content threats. – Quality of life and environment ICT have a direct impact on the environment but also indirect social and economic consequences as a result of its application. ICT positive impact on the environment includes environmental modelling (forecasting), the miniaturisation of devices (which reduces the resources needed for manufacture and distribution), micro/nano technology and embedded systems which improve disaster management, and reduce the environmental impact of farming and fishing. ICT also enables a less resource-intensive production, thereby reducing the environmental impact of economic activities. – e-Work contributes to environmental sustainability as travelling to work is reduced. Innovative transport planning systems can ease traffic congestion and optimise transport capacity. ICT can also contribute to quality of life by delivering more efficient and more effective public services and goods to individuals which in turn can improve their life chances. ICT support for comprehensive life-long learning policies (through e-learning, digital competence actions) can enable all individuals to adapt and keep the pace with the continuous social, economic and technological changes. – Climate and energy policy The combined climate and energy policy is central at the EU’s political programme. Its aism are to bring about alternative ways of running our daily lives so that Europe can continue to create growth and jobs while leading the global effort to tackle climate change and energy efficiency. Europe faces three main challenges in this field – tackling climate change, guaranteeing secure, sustainable and competitive energy, and making the European economy a model for sustainable development in the 21st century[7]. The resolve of the European Council[8] to transform Europe into a low-carbon, high energy efficiency economy means that the continued growth of the European economy, essential to achieve full employment and inclusion, needs to be decoupled from energy consumption. The current trends are unsustainable. Indeed, if nothing were to change, final energy consumption in the EU is predicted to increase up to 25% by 2012, with a substantial rise in greenhouse gas emissions. ICTs have an important role to play in reducing the energy intensity and increasing the energy efficiency of the economy, in other words, in reducing emissions and contributing to sustainable growth. In addition to that, ICTs will not only improve energy efficiency and combat climate change but will also stimulate the development of a large leading-edge market for ICT enabled energy-efficiency technologies that can foster the competitiveness of European industry and create new business opportunities.

Baz Luhrman: Romeo and Juliet Transformation

Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet Transformation A hugely successful transformation of the complex written version to the action packed film took place when accredited writer Baz Luhrmann redefined the classic tale of Shakespeare’s Romeo And Juliet. Luhrmann and co-writer Craig Pearce were tenacious in deciding â€Å"to stick absolutely to the Shakespearean text, to keep as many of the Elizabethan customs as possible, such as a highly evolved code of etiquette and honor, even in the use of violence† in the context of a created world, based on twentieth century icon.They discovered that one of this century's most powerful and effective icons, the movies, best exemplify the notion. â€Å"There are textual facts in Romeo and Juliet, having to do with Elizabethan society, which exist in Mexico,† Luhrmann explains. â€Å"For instance, during Shakespeare's time religion was very involved in politics; there was a very small percentage of great wealth and a large p opulation of poor; it was violent; and people were openly armed. We've interpreted all of these Elizabethan things in the context of the modern, created world.In fact, much of this occurs in modern-day Mexico, in varying degrees. You could actually set the piece in Mexico City itself and just play it. It has mysticism about it and, for me it's exotic. It has a music and magic to it. It's not Verona Beach, but it certainly had a lot of the elements to it. † The costume party was a fabulous pretext for the romantic quality of the film; Romeo being the knight in shining armour, Juliet the angel that comes into his life, completely absorbing him like some fantastical being, driving his obsession with love.There were also a few clever imageries Luhrmann used to further show exactly what the situation was-which, to be honest is challenging for many younger readers of the Shakespeare novel, both in terms of the language used and the fact that it somewhat lacks in the nature of popula r entertainment). These were: the fish tank which was the barrier between the two lovers- just like the water and the beautiful little fish, so exciting, but there was the glass ( the family rivalry) that wouldn’t budge and to break it (defy the rules) would only mean death.What was so clever was that one imagery summarized the main fact of the story of Romeo and Juliet- they are only truly free from their parents when they’ve taken the poison. Imageries are only a part of the beauty of this transformation – as Luhrmann relates, the way it sounds also has a huge effect on audiences. â€Å"To me, the language in Leonardo's mouth is a wonderful thing to hear because the words have resonance. He speaks them as if they really are his words, and that's something you don't always get in a Shakespearean performance. And it’s certainly something you don’t get in his written plays! For enhanced comprehension of Shakespeare's language, Luhrmann set the film in what he calls â€Å"a created world,† a collage of modern and classic images, portraying aspects of religion, theater, myths, technology and of course, pop culture. â€Å"Basically, the created world is a universe that is recognizably modern but has a little distance,† Pearce reveals. â€Å"It's like a fairy tale world, a world of stories which really parallels the movies.The reality' we see in the movies is always a bit magnified, even when it is supposedly realistic. † Luhrmann’s main focus was in getting the youth to appreciate as well as enjoy the purity and brilliance of Shakespearean literature, by appealing to their general love for all things action and romance. Perhaps also, to some extent, even connect with some of the incidents and characters, which is always a factor in movies.This is shown in one way by the characters: The Lady Capulet, for instance, who is so incredibly self-absorbed that she doesn’t see the emotional gulf between herself and daughter Juliet. Everything about the transformation was trying to simplify the understanding of this, and give connections to contemporary society; â€Å"Lady† was dropped to be replaced with the highly religious, uncommon (but well-known) name Gloria, which is a perfect choice.The simple but effective use of over-applied make-up and magnificent clothes illustrates the matter further, and anyone can relate to an egotistic peer. Furthermore, Juliet's father, the imposing and unpredictable drunken monarch is portrayed using a bloated, somewhat hideous actor, which doubtless, reminds many youngsters of the Julius Caesar’s senate as well depicted in the popular Asterix comics.There is also the obvious approach of beginning the film with an attention- grabbing opening of headline articles thrown in a very in-your-face manner, followed by an loud (though not obnoxious) fast action scene, including the ever popular use of guns and impressive somersaulting, only to end in a very cliche CSI like discovery, where the whole affair, complete with police choppers, ends up on the news.Another obvious symbol was the huge statue of Christ which seemed to tower of everything, like some silent guardian watching over all the tragedies, doing nothing for the sufferers. Luhrmann envisions Fulgencio Capulet as â€Å"†¦ the classic Godfather patriarch. â€Å", which shows quite clearly As for Romeo, â€Å"†¦ in a way, he was the original rebel without a cause, the first James Dean. His is a non-politicized rebellion. He is a Byronesque rebel in love with the idea of love itself. â€Å"