story night essay

Themes and Analysis

By elie wiesel.

'Night' is a short and incredibly impactful novel that uses direct language and avoids metaphors and other figures of speech to tell its story.

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Wiesel depicts his experiences in the Holocaust through the eyes of Eliezer who conveys the terrors of what he endured and saw. Readers will likely note reoccurring themes of faith, silence, and inhumanity, as well as symbols that include corpses, fire, and night. 

Night Themes 

Faith .

Throughout the novel, Elie is forced to question his faith in God. When God does not step in and stop the horrors around him, Elie has to consider that his faith may have been wrong all along. He learned that God demands sacrifice but is, in the end, compassionate and loving, that’s far from what he learned firsthand during his experiences in the novel, Night . Despite the fact that Eliezer says he’s lost his faith several times, Wiesel includes religious allusions and figurative language that suggest that that’s not completely true. By the end of the novel, while his understanding of the world and religion has shifted, he’s not completely without faith. 

Silence/Indifference 

This is one of the primary themes in the novel, and one that can be found in Wiesel’s other works as well as lectures. Elie is constantly bothered by the silence of God and the silence of other men and women in Europe throughout the novel.

There are numerous examples of indifference throughout the novel. Elie notes the village’s indifferent reaction when Moishe returns with news of what he’s seen, the German people’s ability to ignore what’s going on right in front of their faces, and of course, the Nazi soldier’s indifference to the lives they were destroying. One of the most telling scenes comes towards the end of the novel when the prisoners are running toward Gleiwitz and are being shot down by guards if they paused for even a moment. 

Inhumanity 

Indifference and silence go hand in hand with inhumanity in Night. It’s impossible to read this novel and not walk away feeling horrified by the inhuman practices promoted and carried out by the Nazi regime. Eliezer has trouble making sense of the world after seeing some of the terrible things that happened inside and outside the camps. One such scene comes after he’s arrived with his father and they walk past a pit in which S.S. soldiers are burning the bodies of children.

Additionally, the prisoner on prisoner violence and hate is another aspect of the inhuman environment Eliezer had to endure. The men in his camps were so desperate they turned on one another, even sons on fathers. This is seen quite clearly at the end of the novel when the prisoners beat Eliezer’s father and effectively end his life. 

Analysis of Key Moments in Night

• Elie studies with Moishe the Beadle. Moishe is expelled from Sighet. 
• Moishe returns and tells everyone what he saw and experienced. 
• German soldiers come to Sighet and place restrictions of Jews living there. 
• Eliezer and his family are moved into a ghetto
• Eliezer and his family are transported to Birkenau on cattle cars. 
• Elie is separated from his mother and sisters . 
• The men are taken to Auschwitz. 
• Elie is given number r A-7713. 
• Everyone goes to Buna. 
• Elie is beaten and has his gold crown removed. 
• Elie watches a young boy executed. 
• Elie’s father barely passes inspection. 
• The death march begins from Buna to an abandoned village and then Gleiwitz. 
• Everyone gets on a train to Buchenwald and very few survive the journey. 
• Elie’s father dies of dysentery and a beating from the other men. 
• Elie is liberated from the camp. 

Style, Tone, and Figurative Language in Night

Throughout Night, Wiesel writes about Elie’s experiences in a detached tone. He uses short sentences and clear words to report on what Elie saw and what he felt. Wiesel was trying to put his experiences into words, in a way that accurately represented them but allowed him to keep some distance from the character of Eliezer. The text is sparse, with very few complex passages or examples of figurative language. Elie Wiesel chose to speak directly to the reader in a way that could not be misunderstood.

Often, Wiesel does take a step back from a terrible scene, talking around it rather than directly describing it. For example, when he speaks about an S.S. guard shooting a prisoner. 

The tone in the novel is serious throughout . There are no light or happy moments. Even when the novel concludes and the camp has been liberated, Elie concludes the novel with a striking scene of loss and sorrow with Eliezer standing in front of a mirror. 

Analysis of Symbols in Night

Night .

One of the most obvious and important symbols in the novel is night. By naming the novel “night” and pushing themes of religious doubt, it’s important to consider Genesis and the passages regarding God’s creation of the earth. First, the Bile says, there was “darkness upon the face of the deep.” It’s this darkness, with the absence of God, that Eliezer lives through. Light is absent from some of the most important scenes in the novel, such as when Eliezer’s father is talking to him about the deportation of the Jews and when they arrive at Birkenau/Auschwitz. 

Fire is a symbol of death and destruction in Night. It is used by the Nazis to destroy evidence of their genocide. It first appears in a horrifying passage when Madame Schächter cries out “ Fire! Look at the flames! Flames everywhere ,” when the train arrives in Birkenau. When the train pulls in, Eliezer can smell burning flesh immediately. This is something that haunts the rest of the novel. The fire is an ever-present reminder of the deaths waiting for those able to escape the initial threat of the crematorium. 

Corpses 

Corpses appear throughout the novel, bringing into the light the true extent of the horrors the Nazi regime perpetrated on the Jewish people. Eliezer is forced to witness deaths and sees piles of bodies. The image of a corpse also appears at the end of the novel when Eliezer looks at himself in the mirror and thinks that he looks more than a corpse than he does a living person. It’s a symbol for the death of who he was, the strength of his faith, and the loss of the 11 million who did in the Holocaust . 

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About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

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Elie Wiesel

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

At the start of the memoir, it's 1941 and Eliezer is a twelve-year-old Jewish boy in the Hungarian town of Sighet. He's deeply religious and spends much of his time studying the Torah (the Bible) and the Talmud and praying. His parents and sisters run a shop in the town, and his father is highly respected in the Jewish community. Eliezer begins to study the Cabbala, the book of Jewish mysticism, with an immigrant named Moché the Beadle . When the Hungarian police deport all of the foreign Jews, Moché is sent away, but he returns with a terrible and fantastic tale: the Gestapo stopped the train and slaughtered the deported Jews. Moché escaped with a leg wound and has come to warn the Jews of Sighet to leave. The Jews of the town can't believe what Moché is saying, and think he's gone mad.

The war continues through 1943. In 1944, the Jews of Sighet still don't really believe Hitler intends to exterminate them. Eliezer wants his father to relocate the family to Palestine, but his father says he's too old to start again. The Fascists come to power in Hungary and German soldiers enter the country. Before long, German officers are living in Sighet and then arresting the Jewish leaders of the town. Soon, the Hungarian police round the Jews up into two ghettoes. Next, they force the Jews like cattle onto trains headed to an unknown destination.

The Jews travel on the train for several days, during which time one Jewish woman goes mad and screams about fire. The train arrives at Birkenau, the gateway to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where the passengers can see chimneys belching fire and can smell burned flesh. The women are immediately separated from the men, and Eliezer never sees his mother or his younger sister again (they are immediately sent to the gas chamber). A Nazi SS doctor separates those who are going to be killed immediately from those who will work. Eliezer sticks close to his father. That first night in the camp, he witnesses babies and children thrown into a great fire in a burning ditch. Eliezer's faith in a just God is shattered.

More separations occur, but Eliezer and his father stay together. All the prisoners are tattooed with a number, and this becomes their identity. They are told they must work or they will be burned in the crematoria. They spend three weeks at Auschwitz before marching to another concentration camp, Buna. Here, Eliezer and his father spend their days working in an electrical equipment warehouse. Their Kapo (the prisoner conscripted to wield power over other prisoners) occasionally goes berserk and beats people, including Eliezer and his father. The SS doctor appears again to weed out another batch of people for the furnaces. Eliezer has a scare when his father is chosen, but his father manages to convince someone that he can still work. While at Buna, Eliezer continues to rebel against the idea of a just God. After being forced to witness the slow hanging death of a child, he ceases to believe in God, altogether.

With the front lines of the war getting closer, the prisoners at Buna are evacuated on a long, nightmare death march to a camp called Gleiwitz. People die continuously along the way as the SS forces them to run for hours and hours in the snow, shooting people who fall behind. Upon arriving at Buna, a young Jewish violinist plays pieces of a Beethoven concerto. By morning the violinist has died. The survivors of the march are kept without food and water for several days, more are separated from the rest to be killed, and the remaining prisoners are crammed onto trains in open-roofed cattle cars. The train ride is endless. The Jews have nothing to eat but snow, and people die left and right. When they pass through a German town, some German workers toss scraps of bread in the car to watch the starving prisoners fight to the death. More people lie down in the snow and die when the train at last arrives at another concentration camp: Buchenwald. Eliezer's father grows feverish, contracts dysentery, and begins to waste away. Doctors won't help, the camp doesn't want to waste food on sick people, and Eliezer can only offer his own rations to his father, who is soon delirious. The night before Eliezer's father passes away, an SS officer beats the dying man on the head. Eliezer is unable to cry or mourn. He spends another two and a half months at Buchenwald in a daze before the Nazis begin another prisoner evacuation. This time there is an armed uprising among the prisoners and the remaining SS flee. American tanks arrive, followed by food, although Eliezer gets food poisoning and spends two weeks in the hospital, near death. When he looks at his face in the mirror for the first time since he left the village of Sighet, he sees a vision he will never forget: the face of a corpse.

by Elie Wiesel

Night essay questions.

Using examples from the text, what does Wiesel convey about human nature in the concentration camps? Where does he (if at all) draw the line between humanity and barbarism?

Early on, Eliezer indicates that it does not take much for a complete breakdown of civility to ensue. Even as the Jews are deported from Sighet, Eliezer reveals, couples began to openly copulate in the train car. As more and more time is spent in the camps, Eliezer describes a situation in which man turns into beast. This is best exemplified in which the guards throw bread into the train car and fighting ensues, to the point at which hunger is more important to the body that relationships are to the mind, and a man kills his own father for the piece of bread. As Eliezer describes: "Men were hurling themselves against each other, trampling, tearing at and mauling each other. Beasts of prey unleashed, animal hate in their eyes. An extraordinary vitality possessed them, sharpening their teeth and nails" (pg. 101). Eliezer does not shy away from describing himself as a beast: "I fought my way to the coffee cauldron like a wild beast" (pg. 106).

Discuss Eliezer’s struggle with faith throughout the book. What is his relationship with God in the beginning, and what is it by the end of his time in the concentration camps?

At the beginning, Eliezer is very devout, and he devotes his studies to mystic teaching and to prayer. While he never fully carries a disbelief in God, throughout this time in the concentration camps he comes to resent God, and to mistrust him. Rather than deny his existence, Eliezer instead turns to interrogating God's motives. He foreshadows this transformation at the start of the book, saying, "In the beginning there was faith—which is childish; trust—which is vain; and illusion—which is dangerous." (Forward). After time spent in the camps, Eliezer questions God: "What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies?" (pg. 66.)

Throughout the piece, Eliezer sometimes separates his mind and his body. When are some examples of this, and what does he convey by describing himself in these ways?

The strongest example of when Eliezer separates himself from his body is during the death march in the snow, in which he describes his body as something that merely anchors him, acting against his desire to be free of pain and suffering. As he states: "I was putting one foot in front of the other, like a machine. I was dragging this emaciated body that was still such a weight. If only I could have shed it! Though I tried to put it out of my mind, I couldn't help thinking that there were two of us: my body and I. And I hated that body" (pg. 85). Another moment that conveys this separation of mind and body is when both his mind and his body are afraid of a blow to the head similar to the one that a guard had dealt his father: "I didn't move. I was afraid, my body was afraid of another blow, this time to my head" (pg. 111).

Though there are many images of prisoners struggling to live, there are also more unnerving ones of prisoners becoming so apathetic that their will to die is stronger. To what does Eliezer attribute this apathy, and how does he describe prisoner’s “will to live"?

Eliezer frequently attributes death of the prisoners not only to dire circumstances and the struggle for survival, but also to moments of apathy in which prisoners simply give up. More often than not, Eliezer attributes the loss of the will to live to two principal factors: the complete disbelief in God, and the knowledge that one's family has perished. The earliest evidence of this is the incident of Akiba Drumer, in which Eliezer lies to him and tells him that his family is well:

"'The only thing that keeps me alive,' [Drumer] kept saying, 'is to know that Reizel and the little ones are still alive. Were it not for them, I would give up.' One evening, he came to see us, his face radiant. 'A transport just arrived from Antwerp. I shall go to see them tomorrow. Surely they will have news …' He left. We never saw him again. He had been given the news. The real news"(pg. 45). When Eliezer believes that his father, who looks weakened and frozen after the march, may be dead, he says, "Suddenly, the evidence overwhelmed me: there was no longer any reason to live, any reason to fight" (pg. 99).

Discuss Eliezer and his father’s evolving relationship throughout the piece. At one point is there a role reversal—when does this happen, and how does Eliezer cope with it?

Throughout Night, Weisel describes how the trials of the concentration camp effectively switch the roles of father and son over time. The father-and-son relationship is first strained when Eliezer immediately understands the immediacy of the deportation threat and asks his father to "sell everything, liquidate everything, and to leave." Before even being deported, Eliezer's father refuses to get an immigration pass to Palestine, citing his age: "I am too old my son...too old to start a new life...too old to start from scratch in a distant land" (pg. 9). At the beginning of the piece, this is where the age difference between Eliezer and his father appears to be the widest; thereafter, the hardships narrow this chasm until, by the end of the piece, there is almost a complete temporal switch.

While there are indeed some instances in which Weisel's father looks out for his son (including giving him extra rations of bread) by the end, Eliezer begins to take on more and more responsibility for his father, until the pressure of having his father rely on him becomes almost unbearable. After the march through the snow, Eliezer's father develops dysentery and relies completely on his son for survival. The last word on his father's lips is "Eliezer." Eliezer feels numb to his father's death and feels guilty for being somehow grateful for his father's passing:"I did not weep, and it pained me that I could not weep. But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last!" (pg. 112.)

Night Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Night is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Night, Chapter 2

From the text:

"There are eighty of you in the car," the German officer added. "If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs."

What becomes elies main goal

In chapter three Elizer's main goal was for himself and his father to be selected for work and thus stay alive. They achieve this goal by lying to authorities and looking healthy enough to work.

I'm sorry, you have not provided the excerpt in question. Please include all information in your posts.

Study Guide for Night

Night study guide contains a biography of Elie Wiesel, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Night
• Night Summary
• Character List

Essays for Night

Night essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Night by Elie Wiesel.

• Silent Night
• The Motivation in Night
• The Gospel According to Mark and Night: Would St. Mark Call Night a 'Religious Book'?
• NIght and the Problem of Evil
• The Changing Nature of the Relationship Between Elie and His Father in Night

Lesson Plan for Night

• About the Author
• Study Objectives
• Common Core Standards
• Introduction to Night
• Relationship to Other Books
• Bringing in Technology
• Notes to the Teacher
• Related Links
• Night Bibliography

Wikipedia Entries for Night

• Introduction
• Film and television
• Video games

100 pages • 3 hours read

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.

Before You Read

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-2

Chapters 3-4

Chapters 5-6

Chapters 7-9

Key Figures

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Discussion Questions

Religious faith plays an important role in Night , from Eliezer’s devout childhood in Sighet to life in the concentration camps after the Jews are deported from Hungary. How does Eliezer’s relationship to God and his commitment to his faith change over the course of the narrative? What is the value of religious observance and faith for the imprisoned Jews, and how does their religion become a target of Nazi persecution and oppression?

Family ties, especially the bond between father and son, is a major theme of Wiesel’s memoir . How does the narrative emphasize the importance of this relationship? How are love and loyalty related to the will to survive and the instinct for self-preservation? Does the relationship of Eliezer and his father change over time at Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald? If so, how?

The narrative of Night relies on powerful symbols, such as night , fire , and silence , to convey the author’s meaning. What do these three symbols signify, and how does Wiesel develop those meanings throughout the course of the book?

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Night by Elie Wiesel: Essay Topics & Samples

Do you need to write an essay on Elie Wiesel’s Night ? Are you feeling too overwhelmed and don’t know how to start? No worries!

In this article, we’ve gathered everything you need to create an outstanding Night essay: topics, the most insightful questions, valuable prompts, and useful examples.

Night by Elie Wiesel Essay Topics

• The transformation of Eliezer’s personality throughout the book. Describe the main character’s personality at the beginning of the book. What were the boy’s interests? How did he perceive the world living in Sighet? Examine how the concentration camp changed Eliezer’s attitude towards life.
• The significance of family ties in Night by Elie Wiesel. Analyze the relationship between Eliezer and his father . In your opinion, are family ties a powerful or a destructive force for the main character? State your position and support it with good examples.
• Night : just a title or a powerful symbol? Does night itself symbolize anything in the book? If yes, what? What role does the symbol of the night play for the comprehension of the entire story? To make your essay more dynamic, consider inserting relevant quotes from the book.
• The religious context in Night, a novel by Elie Wiesel. Investigate Eliezer’s attitude towards God . Compare and contrast his perception of divine powers in the beginning and at the end of the book. What factors influenced the transformation of the main character’s worldview?
• Did Eliezer become a stronger or a weaker person? Analyze Eliezer’s transformation . Did the obstacles he went through make him feel weaker or stronger? Present your point of view and support it with valid arguments and appropriate evidence from the text.
• Is there a life after the concentration camp?   “From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me” (Eliezer, Night ). How do you think Eliezer’s life will look like after the camp? Is there any chance he will be able to get back to everyday life?  
• Eliezer’s relief after his father’s death: a betrayal or a normal reaction? Why do you think Eliezer felt like he got rid of the burden after his father passed away? Should the main character be ashamed about it? Analyze how the trials Eliezer went through transformed his attitude towards his dad.
• Hell on Earth. Describe the Nazi’s inhuman actions toward the deported Jews. What were the Nazi’s intentions? After Eliezer witnessed the tourers in the concentration camp, did he lose faith in God? Or did he only started questioning God’s justice and kindness?
• The unexpected interpretation of the symbol of fire. The fire is the central symbol Elie Wiesel includes in his book. Analyze its meaning and significance. Compare and contrast the role of the fire in Night and the Bible. Why do you think the author interprets fire in quite an unusual way?
• The significance of Night by Elie Wiesel for the audience of the 21 st century. Think about the lessons the modern readers could learn from this book. Will you suggest reading it to your children? In your opinion, can Night become outdated and irrelevant one day?

Night by Elie Wiesel: Essay Samples

In case you lack the inspiration to compose your Night essay, we collected the most insightful samples. Read their summaries, choose the one you most liked, and create your outstanding piece of writing!

• Father-Son Relationships in Eliezer Wiesel’s Book “Night” Are you about to write an essay on the evolution of the relationship between Eliezer and his father? Take a look at this example! You will find an analysis of the family ties and a bunch of crucial quotes.
• Jews’ Suffering in “Night” by Elie Wiesel Literature Analysis The given essay sample explores the trials the Jews were forced to go through during the Holocaust. Also, you will find some insights into Eliezer’s struggle to maintain his faith in God. Check it out!
• Events in the Concentration Camps: “Night” by Elie Wiesel This essay gives a general overview of the events that occurred to Eliezer and his fellow Jews in several concentration camps. Also, the author focuses on the effect of hardships on the relationship between Eliezer and his father.
• Eliezer and His Father in Elie Wiesel’s Night How did Eliezer change his attitude towards his father as the plot progresses? Curious about the reasons for the main character’s personality transformation? Read this essay and grasp the answers to all of your questions!
• Elie’s Life in “Night” by Elie Wiesel The following essay will take you into a long journey of Eliezer’s life, starting from Sighet and ending in the hospital in front of the mirror. Are you ready to feel compassion towards the main character? Check this essay out!
• Elie Wiesel’s “Night” – Eliezer’s Faith in God Eliezer’s relationship with God takes a separate storyline in the book. Do you want to investigate it? Take a look at this essay!
• Family Relationship in ”Night” by Elie Wiesel At the beginning of the book, Eliezer’s family is an exemplary one in Sighet. But how do the family ties shift throughout the story? Do they weaken or strengthen? Read this sample and figure it out!
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“Analysis of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night”, Essay Example

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You are free to use it as an inspiration or a source for your own work.

The “Starry Night”, painted by Vincent Van Gogh is an oil painting on canvas measuring 73 x 92 that was created in June of 1889. Starry Night has come to be one of the most well-known paintings in modern day culture and one of the most replicated prints in art. Vincent Van Gogh only sold one painting during his lifetime; however, he has come to be one of the most famous artists of all times. Vincent Van Gogh was born in Holland in 1853 and traveled to Paris in 1886 where he began to paint in short brushstrokes like the impressionist during that time period. Van Gogh was troubled with some personal issues, possibly a brain disease or lead poisoning and ended up cutting a portion of his ear lobe off. (Van Gogh Gallery) He was admitted to Remy a psychiatric hospital, called Saint Remy. It was at Saint Remy where he created the famous masterpiece, “Starry Night”. (Life of Van Gogh) His troubled personal life explains why the picture was a nocturnal piece with an underlying drama to it. The elements in the painting of lines, lighting, space, color, principles of balance and focal point all illustrate the drama that the artist was undergoing during his creation of the “Starry Night”.

Van Gogh paints a night sky and swirls the clouds and lights the clouds to shine their own luminescence, as well as a shining bright crescent moon. The lines in the sky of the painting are interesting because it keeps the viewer’s focus moving across the painting. In addition, the lines curve and create an onward movement that attracts the viewer and keeps them involved with the painting. Furthermore, Van Gogh uses unique thick brush strokes that are very obvious to the viewer. It has been hypothesized that his harsh brush strokes are in relation to his mental status while he was painting; however, all of his paintings do show consistency with his unique brushstroke. The ironic thing about the hard brushstrokes and the meaning of the brushstrokes is that Vincent himself felt more at ease with that technique in painting. For instance, he wrote a letter to his brother, Theo, and stated, “I should not be surprised if you like the Starry Night and the Ploughed Fields, there is a greater quiet about them than in the other canvases” (Artble). Even though there were harsh brushstrokes and the painting was set at night, Van Gogh made portions of the painting bright and filed with starts. This brings us to the lighting in the painting.

Within the brushstrokes, as mentioned previously, there is light that guides the viewer through the dark night. This illustrates Van Gogh’s favor for nighttime. He makes the sky extremely powerful as it sits above a small town. He swirls the colors and lines that incorporates both the color and light that he uses throughout the painting. The sky is painted with white clouds and bright stars. The main lighting in the painting is the bright shining starts and the crescent moon. The shining stars illuminate the sky, as well as the large crescent moon. The heaviness of the brushstrokes and the rich colors give a sense of chaos. There are also lights shining brightly from the windows of the houses in the town below, but it looks more peaceful than the chaotic sky. It was been thought that this was Van Gogh’s way of making peace with his illness and finding his way to heaven. The light in the sky and houses therefore represent hope that even in a dark night, there is light. Basically, he was giving himself hope through the lighting exemplified in the painting, telling himself that no matter how dark a time is there is still hope. In addition, the letter written to his brother indicates that the lighting made him feel calm and relaxed. (Artble)

In addition to the brushstrokes and lighting, Van Gogh creates spacing in his painting that allows the viewer to move their eyes between the stars and the curves in the sky to create a dot-to dot effect (Artble). The spacing creates a fluid movement of brushstrokes resulting in a calm and beautiful piece. It was indicated during the Van Gogh’s time, the Impressionist painters were not focusing on this type of spacing in their art work, making Van Gogh’s work unique and extremely distinct for the 19 th century. (Artble)

Van Gogh’s chose the color yellow and blue as the dominant colors in the painting. He also used these colors in many other of his later pieces of art. As mentioned previously, it is said that he was suffering from some sort of brain illness or possibly lead poisoning and it is rationalized that is what influenced Van Gogh to use such different colors in his art work for that time period. He used the bright yellow paint along with white to create the spiral clouds in order to bring attention of the viewer to the sky portion of the painting. He also uses green and other colors in the town, such as orange and red to offset and make the yellow stand out more. Overall, the choice of the bright and rich colors of the night is what draws so much attention and captivates the viewers in this unique piece of art.

There are different forms that are used in the painting, including balance. The balance in the painting is shown through the movement of the brushstrokes that starts on the left end of the painting towards the center, where it becomes the main focus of the painting. The balance is also shown through the harmony that is created with the numerous stars that are in the sky and the houses that are represented below. In addition, balance is made through the position of the cypress trees and the crescent moon in the sky. The combination of the moon, houses, and rolling hills is what ultimately creates a sense of balance in the painting. (Scribd)

The focus of the painting is the lines. The lines in the painting are two different types, a long-term bend and a short-term bend that alternates giving the viewer an engaging feeling. Looking at the painting, the viewer can focus on the harsh brush strokes of the alternating lines and focus on the bright colors made of those lines. The main focus of the Starry Night also leads the viewer to think about how different Van Gogh’s technique was compared to other artists during the 19 th century. While looking at the Starry Night it is easy to look at all the focal points in the painting and realize that Van Gogh was an interesting individual and used his emotions and whatever he was going through at the time to paint his pictures, without following the rules of the time. While he was alive he only sold one painting and now many of his works of art are masterpieces. (Scribd)

There are different reasons why Van Gogh may have painted the Starry Night in the manner that he did. For one, since it was painted during his stay at Saint Remy, it is supposedly his version of his view from his room there. In regard to the form, objects, color, lighting and technique, it has been theorized that both his mental status and the socioeconomic status of the culture during that time period may have influenced the artwork. For instance, he was just hospitalized for cutting off his lobe and he uses harsh brushstrokes to represent the dark night. The cypress trees in the painting give a more gentle approach and may represent the townspeople who were farmers during that period, in which he may have thought of hard working individuals. On the left side of the Starry Night painting there is a large dark object that could represent negativity or rejection. Perhaps Van Gogh added that in the painting to describe his feelings of rejection from society and the lack of interest in his paintings at the time. (Scribd) Overall, the Starr Night is an amazing painting with great depth and unique technique. It is one of the paintings of over all time that majority of individuals, whether educated in art or not, recognize or have hanging in their home. The uniqueness of the color, lighting and brush strokes alone represent a unique masterpiece.

Works Cited

Arble. Starry Night Analysis. Web. 2012. Retrieved on April 1, 2012 from: http://www.artble.com/artists/vincent_van_gogh/paintings/starry_night/more_information/analysis

Life of Van Gough. Analysis of Vincent Van Gogh’s Starry Night. WOeb. 2011Retrieved April 1, 2012 from: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html.

Scribd. Web. Retrieved on April 1, 2012 form: http://www.scribd.com/doc/57425684/Vincent-Van-Gogh-The-Starry-Night

Van Gogh Gallery. Vincent van Gogh: Biography. Web. 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2012 from: http://www.vangoghgallery.com/misc/bio.html.

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5 Things To Do This Summer To Prepare Your College Applications

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Harvard University Admissions

The summer before senior year is a critical time for those preparing to submit college applications in the fall. While summer is traditionally seen as a time to relax and recharge, it also offers a valuable opportunity for students to develop their passion projects, start writing their application essays, and plan a timeline that will allow them to stay organized and on track throughout the fall. As they look forward to compiling their college applications, here are five essential tasks that rising seniors should tackle this summer to set themselves up for success:

1. Start The Common App Essay

One of the most daunting and time-consuming parts of the college application process is writing the personal statement , also known as the Common App essay. Students should anticipate that the writing process will take longer than they initially expect it to, as the best essays require self-reflection, multiple drafts, and a great deal of editing. Writing this essay over the summer will allow students time to brainstorm, draft, and revise without the added pressure of schoolwork.

The Common App essay should tell a compelling story. Often, it will serve to highlight a student’s hook and cohere all of the elements of a student’s application around a central narrative. Students should begin by reflecting on their experiences, values, and academic and personal goals. While many students assume that a standout essay requires a groundbreaking discovery, a life-altering experience, or a heroic feat, some of the most engaging and original essays are those that find significance in seemingly mundane or everyday experiences. By working on their essay over the summer, students not only have the time to workshop a unique topic, but they can also find inspiration in the activities that they engage in outside of the classroom—a lesson they learned in their summer job, a relationship they forged during their summer travels, or a personal value or belief they developed through their summer volunteering.

2. Finalize A Balanced College List

While many students go on their college visits during the spring of their junior year, summer can offer a prime opportunity for students to visit colleges and hone their balanced college list . As students evaluate the schools on their list after their visits, they should consider factors such as location, size, academic programs, extracurricular activities, and campus culture. For students who have hectic summer schedules, virtual tours, college webinars, and online information sessions can provide valuable insights.

Additionally, when it comes to finalizing their college list, students should aim to include a mix of roughly two to three safety schools, four to six match schools, and four to six reach schools. Safety schools are those for which a student’s academic credentials (standardized test scores and GPA) significantly exceed the institution’s average admitted student profile. Match schools are those for which a student’s credentials are on par with the average, and reach schools are those for which a student’s credentials are below the average of admitted students’ profiles. Students should also consider all Ivy League and top-tier schools to be reach schools, no matter how competitive their GPA and standardized tests scores are. A well-balanced list will set students up for success and provide them with options when decision time comes next spring.

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Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, 3. achieve standardized testing goals.

As top schools continue to reverse their test-optional policies, it is critical for students to set ambitious yet attainable goals for their standardized test scores, as they are the foundation of a competitive application. There is still time for students to sign up to sit for summer tests—the ACT will be offered on July 13 (registration deadline passed on June 7, but late registration is open until June 21), and the SAT will be offered on August 24 (August 9 is the registration deadline). Students should set a study schedule that allows them to review key concepts, practice sample questions, and take full-length practice tests during their free time.

Those who have already taken standardized tests should consider retaking them if they believe they can achieve a higher score. Higher scores can increase an applicant’s competitiveness, both for college admission and for merit-based scholarships. Consistent, focused preparation can make a significant difference in students’ performance.

4. Develop A Passion Project

A passion project is an independent initiative that reflects a student’s core interests and showcases the applicant's dedication and creativity. Whether it's starting a nonprofit, conducting independent research, creating a blog, or launching a community service project, a strong passion project should highlight students' commitment to their interests and ability to make a meaningful impact in their communities.

Summer is the perfect time to either start or significantly scale a passion project. Students should focus on setting clear goals, planning their activities, and documenting their progress. This project can provide rich content for their personal statement, supplemental essays, and interviews, illustrating their unique strengths and interests to admissions officers.

5. Make A Plan for Requesting Letters Of Recommendation

For students who have not yet done so, summer is an excellent time to request letters of recommendation. Students should identify the teachers, coaches, or mentors who can speak positively about their abilities and character. Reaching out to recommenders early to discuss college plans and expressing why they value their recommendation will allow recommenders to craft thoughtful letters that reflect students’ strengths and contributions.

Additionally, students should use the summer to prepare a concise packet of information for each recommender, including their resume, a list of their achievements, and any specific points they would like their recommender to highlight. Providing this information can help recommenders write a more personalized and detailed letter.

Summer is the perfect time to make progress on college applications. Students who wait until the fall must juggle the stress of sports, extracurricular activities, volunteering, and earning good grades in school, as first semester grades are often considered in the application review process. Focused summer preparation can allow students to make significant progress ahead of time, write quality essays, prepare cohesive applications, and be less stressed come fall.

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I Finally Befriended My Idol Tavi Gevinson. Would It Fall Apart Over Taylor Swift?

By Annie Hamilton

This story was featured in The Must Read, a newsletter in which our editors recommend one can’t-miss story every weekday. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.

I first heard Tavi Gevinson’s name at a breakfast I attended on the Upper West Side in 2010. A group of mothers were talking about her, seemingly with some envy. I was confused; UWS moms aren’t supposed to be jealous of 14-year-old girls. From what I could gather, Tavi—who had launched her fashion blog, Style Rookie, a couple years before from her bedroom in Oak Park, Illinois, and had since attended Paris Fashion Week and been interviewed in The New York Times —wasn’t the usual kind of kid-famous: She was a fascinating person. Like other fascinating people, there wasn’t gonna be an easy way to classify her. My cheeks started going hot now, too. I was jealous of that idea—that Tavi couldn’t be easily understood.

I wanted to know Tavi. Or, I wanted Tavi to know me. I didn’t think I should be the one to initiate. She probably wouldn’t like that. She was getting enough attention already. To stand out, I should probably run into her the old-fashioned way. No, I should probably become successful myself. I should probably only run into Tavi once I became a success.

Years went by, and I kept tabs on Tavi. She became an actress.That hurt, but I wasn’t gonna let it crush my admiration completely. Tavi became friends with a good friend of mine. I became friends with a good friend of hers. The eventuality of becoming friends with Tavi became more and more of a possibility. But I never ran into her.

It was 12 years before I was finally invited to a dinner party that Tavi was also attending. It was an intimate dinner party in New York and I wasn’t successful. I wished I had more assets to bring to the party. I will say: I was lookin’ good. Or, I was thinking I was looking good. I was in my mid 20s, in a new “I’m hot” stage of my life. I felt insecure about everything else, but the hotness feeling went a long way.

There’s no way beautiful Tavi ever cared or thought about “looking hot.”

We were allowed to smoke inside, and the wine was better than what I was used to, and I got very drunk. All of the guests were talking about politics. Actually, I’m not sure what they were talking about—all six of them seemed like geniuses, and I was out of my element. I was living in Los Angeles then, and only visiting New York for a couple of nights. All I knew to contribute at a dinner party were stories from my childhood, recaps of nights out, tales of who I’d had sex with. Like I said, I was out of my element, and the wine wasn’t solving anything.

I remembered I had read an article from The Cut the week before—the only topic I could think of that wasn’t about myself. I brought the article up. I looked around. Three of the other guests worked for places like The New Yorker. I was probably a dumbass for bringing up a publication like The Cut, so I attempted to cover my ass. “I’m a dumbass, so I read The Cut.”

Nobody liked that.

Without missing a beat, Tavi turned to the sweet-looking man next to me—who was now ghostly white—and said, “Tony, congratulations—it’s amazing it took The Cut this long to promote you as editor.”

I had just insulted a major publication in front of one of the major publication’s editors . I wanted to rip out my fingernails.

Things got worse from there. That’s when I started contributing sex stories. I had nothing else. Tavi patiently sat through my rambling, with nothing to prove. She had a serious boyfriend with her. They seemed like such a sexy, solid unit.

I woke up the next morning and decided that Tavi was Enemy No. 1. What. A. Bitch.

Years went by and I got my act together a little more. I moved back to New York. I figured out how to hold my tongue at dinner parties.

One evening two years ago, Tavi and I reunited at the scene of the crime: our friend Naomi’s apartment, where Tavi had “thrown me under the bus” years before. I was ready.

We became friends. Not quickly, but honestly. With the normal amount of intensity—but I longed for intimacy with Tavi. I wasn’t sure how to get there. She still scared the shit out of me; it was as if she could see RIGHT THROUGH ME. Like she’s a lie detector or something. Plus, I had entered a rocky new stage of my life—filled with anxiety and mania—and I was doubling down on performing “happy” behavior so that she wouldn’t be able to see what was really going on.

But I had an idea. What if I asked Tavi to write something with me? Writing might be the perfect way for us to understand each other better; and frankly, I thought it might make her like me more. So I suggested we write an article together. She suggested that I review her new zine, Fan Fiction , that would be published online soon. It was an imagined friendship with Taylor Swift that would be loosely—very loosely—based on her own brief interactions with the pop star. I agreed—and immediately wished I hadn’t. There are five Taylor Swift songs that are EXTREMELY meaningful to me, but for some reason I’m not that interested in all of the cultural critiques of her. Sometimes, I like seeing what she’s up to in paparazzi photos, but mostly, I just like listening to those five songs.

Weeks went by. I had a terrible manic episode. I was the only one who wasn’t aware that I was having a terrible manic episode. I didn’t read the zine. I couldn’t bring myself to.

I don’t just like listening to Taylor’s music. I’ll say it: I am interested in “Taylor Swift.” There was a period last summer in which she would come up in every SINGLE conversation I had on a given day. I’d only ever experienced this with politics, with people like Donald Trump. It fascinated me that Taylor’s name was quite literally on everybody’s lips. And that most of what was said was extremely complimentary. I guess I was jealous.

I didn’t read the zine. Tavi called me. She wondered where the article was. I mumbled some gibberish about how maybe we should do something else. Could we write an article in which Tavi teaches me how to be a good friend? Tavi seemed disappointed, but she agreed to it. She said she thought it sounded funny. I felt like a piece of shit.

Why wouldn’t I read Tavi’s zine? I do read . I actually read! I KNOW HOW TO DO IT! It wasn’t the 70 pages that bothered me and I love Tavi’s writing. I look up to her as a writer! Why was I stringing her along like this? WHY COULDN’T I READ THE GODDAMNED ZINE.

Another week went by and Tavi—surprise, surprise—initiated the kind of intimacy I had always dreamed of us having. It started with a voice note. Not that I was able to listen to it. I couldn’t bear to. Instead, I just assumed that it was probably Tavi telling me that she was annoyed that I agreed to write an article about Fan Fiction and then decided to write something else instead. I called her up. Tavi confirmed that she’d like me to review the zine and that she wasn’t interested in working on anything else together for the time being. She expressed, vulnerably, that she wanted the zine to get more readers. If I wrote an article about it, it might help to get it out there. Here Tavi was, respecting me by telling me exactly what she needed. My heart sunk: Tavi and I were getting to know each other better through writing, but only because I was acting like a disrespectful piece of shit.

I’m not actually jealous of Taylor Swift. Her life seems like something I wouldn’t know how to handle. I’m going to say something that’ll at first sound like a BOLD delusion of grandeur, but: I don’t think Taylor Swift would like me. And I wouldn’t blame Taylor for hating me. We sort of, kind of have a mutual friend, and I treated this friend badly. The kind of bad that changed the way I even thought about myself.

I didn’t want to read or hear or watch anything about Taylor because I didn’t want to be reminded of all of my own shortcomings.

I agreed to read Tavi’s zine. I wanted to be a good friend to Tavi.

I read Fan Fiction at a small table in the back of Walker’s in Tribeca in just under an hour. I flew through the thing. It’s painful and awkward and hilarious and expertly written. It’s insightful. It turns out Tavi had already written an article about how to be a good friend, and it’s Fan Fiction. In it, Tavi tells the love story that unfolds when one falls for a new best friend. It is a warning about how not to go about friendship, and how to remain true to yourself in relation to another person. Fan Fiction defines the difference between intensity and intimacy. Tavi grapples with the mistakes she made in trying to become REAL and TRUE friends with Taylor, and through that she tries to make peace with the different, inauthentic versions of herself which emerged. I know the thing’s a fantasy piece, but the truth that Tavi inserted into the idolization of a contemporary woman…well, it was hard to ignore how Tavi was my Taylor Swift.

Towards the end of the second act, Tavi writes: “I could not love Taylor. I was too much of a fan.”

I could not—maybe can not—love Tavi, because I am too much of a fan!

After years of trying to scheme my way into Tavi’s heart, I finally realized: I’d have to get to know her first.

Just as Tavi wasn’t able to see Taylor, or let Taylor SEE HER, I couldn’t properly listen to Tavi because I had already decided who she was, what she liked, and what was most important to know about her. I couldn’t hear Tavi because my prime focus in talking to Tavi has always been to impress.

We went to dinner a couple of nights later. It was the closest I’d ever felt to Tavi, and I think it was because it was the first time that I might have actually listened to her. I already had listened to her. I had read her writing. I knew more about her imagination.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the last act of Fan Fiction , in which Tavi imagines a correspondence with Taylor in which Taylor and Tavi battle for control over their own narratives. (Tavi writing as Taylor made me laugh out loud. A REAL cackle.) Not only do Taylor and Tavi disagree on what happened between them, on specific memories, but they also fight to be individuals. They wrestle with how to both admire and disagree with each other. It is my favorite part of the zine because it is a fascinating account of Tavi and Taylor’s fictional battle for narrative control.

I began to get self-conscious about this idea. Was I writing this piece just to please Tavi? Was it stupid of me to promote her zine by emulating its style? Would my mimicry actually disappoint her? Would she feel sucked up to, or worse, swindled somehow? I decided to send her my draft. She responded right away.

My email to Tavi:

truly be honest if you hate okkkkkkk done HARD TO READ ABOUT YOURSELF IS WHAT I MEAN

Tavi’s email to me:

Dear Annie, Thank you for sending me your piece. I'm very flattered to know you've followed my work all these years. I respect you so much and admire the level of self-reflection here. I also lol’d a handful of times. Just a few corrections as I’m sure you want to be accurate— I did not throw you under the bus. I made sure you knew Tony worked at The Cut before you could humiliate yourself further. Don't include that I wanted more people to read my zine. I think ending with us getting dinner is a bit sentimental (though I hold that night very close). Overall: I worry it's a bit too fawning. Kind of reads like I'm holding a gun to your head. Any way you can make it so you seem less afraid of me would be great. Other than that—love it! Title: "Work Friends"? xx Tavi

In Fan Fiction, Tavi and Taylor fight to get the last word. But I can’t imagine Tavi ever not securing the final word in any kind of argument. Tavi is good with words and even better at putting her imagination onto the page. I urge you to read Fan Fiction , okay?! I IMPLORE you to.

If this experience with Tavi inadvertently taught me how to be a good friend, Fan Fiction granted me the permission to be the fan again. Her fan again. A fan of anyone, actually.

In my most meaningful relationships, I will always be just that…a fan .

Read Tavi Gevinson’s zine, Fan Fiction, here .

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The Heat Wave Scenario That Keeps Climate Scientists Up at Night

By Jeff Goodell

Mr. Goodell is the author of “The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet.”

On a recent Thursday evening, a freakish windstorm called a derecho (Spanish for “straight ahead”) hit Houston, a city of more than two million people that also happens to be the epicenter of the fossil fuel industry in America.

In a matter of minutes, winds of up to 100 miles per hour blew out office building windows, uprooted trees and toppled electric poles and transmission towers. Nearly a million households lost power. Which meant that not only was there no light; there was no air-conditioning. The damage from the storm was so extensive that, five days later, more than 100,000 homes and businesses were still marooned in the heat and darkness.

Luckily, the day the derecho blew in, the temperature in Houston, a city infamous for its swampy summers, was in the low to mid-80s. Hot, to be sure, but for most healthy people, not life-threatening. Of the at least eight deaths reported as a result of the storm, none were from heat exposure.

But if this storm had arrived several days later, perhaps over the Memorial Day weekend, when the temperature in Houston hit 96 degrees, with a heat index as high as 115, it might have been a very different story. “The Hurricane Katrina of extreme heat” is how Mikhail Chester, director of the Metis Center for Infrastructure and Sustainable Engineering at Arizona State University, once put it to me, echoing the memory of the catastrophic 2005 hurricane that struck Louisiana, devastated New Orleans and killed more than 1,300 people.

Most people who died in Louisiana during Katrina died from drownings, injuries or heart conditions. But Dr. Chester was using Katrina as a metaphor for what can happen to a city unprepared for an extreme climate catastrophe. In New Orleans, the levee system was overwhelmed by torrential rains ; eventually, 80 percent of the city was underwater.

What if, instead, the electricity goes out for several days during a blistering summer heat wave in a city that depends on air-conditioning?

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Nell Irvin Painter’s understanding of America is beautiful and bracing. We should listen.

“I Just Keep Talking” brings together wide-ranging and pointed essays by the author of “The History of White People.”

From the opening sentences of her new collection, “I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays,” historian Nell Irvin Painter addresses readers in a voice brimming with knowledge, clarity and, most delightfully, confidence. As she writes, it would have been a terrible thing had she died young, “during the full-blown era of White-male-default segregation, discrimination, and disappearance that wound down only yesterday. I would have disappeared from memory, just another forgotten Black woman scholar, invisible to history and to histography.” And poor readers would have been deprived of her droll wit and self-assured wisdom.

It’s no small thing that in an era filled with grievances based on injuries that are sometimes profound and often perceived, Painter makes it clear that she has not come to this memoir to reclaim a lost or damaged part of herself. She recounts her response to an admirer who once inquired about what she did for healing. “‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I’m not broken.’ Not broken, but on occasion frustrated, indignant — self-righteously — pissed off with cause, often exhausted, but mostly and permanently grateful for the people who have protected me, mentored me, supported me over so many decades.” This is an invigorating introduction, full of certainty and strength. Painter has moved through her professional life always knowing her worth, never doubting her intelligence and believing that those who might refuse to listen to her insight would be lesser for their decision.

Perhaps it requires a historian to fully grasp the importance — or at least the impact — of telling one’s own story with a certain brio. Painter, 81, is an esteemed historian retired from Princeton University who studied painting later in life, including at the Rhode Island School of Design. (She wrote about that experience in an earlier memoir, “ Old in Art School .”) The essays in “I Just Keep Talking,” which reflect upon the meaning of “Whiteness,” our understanding of enslavement and the power of nuance, among other subjects, are accompanied by her artwork, which sometimes amplifies her words and sometimes stands in their stead. It is a beautiful book. But its power ultimately rests in the sentences, not the pictures.

In some cases, Painter turns her attention to long-ago history, such as the legacy of Sojourner Truth. She informs readers that the 19th-century abolitionist and women’s rights activist did not utter the most famous phrase attributed to her: “Ain’t I a woman?” If Truth had, in fact, asked the question, Painter says, society’s answer would have been “no.” The answer not only would have reflected the circumstances of the times but would have undercut the way in which Truth understood her power and the skill with which she used it.

The Truth sketched by Painter, in an essay from 1994, is more complex than the one who has been reduced to a misattributed slogan. Truth eschewed the trappings of intellectualism and freedom as used by orator Frederick Douglass, and built her “public persona to establish that what had happened to her — her enslavement, rather than her reason — lent her a unique wisdom.”

Painter’s assessment of Truth is searing, sad and deeply revealing to a lay reader. Truth understood a reality of her time, which is that “in the eyes of most nineteenth-century Americans to be both memorable and woman at the same time simply was not possible. Black women’s individual experience had either to be reconstructed as something emblematically Negro — that is, as enslaved — or to be erased.”

As always, understanding our history means understanding ourselves. We carry our history with us: what we’ve learned in textbooks, what has been burnished in familial oral histories and what has been prettied up by politicians. Painter reminds us of history’s complications and subtleties. She encourages civilians — not just activists or academics — to ask all the pertinent questions, even the uncomfortable ones or those that are contrary to our individual politics and preferences.

What did slavery do to those who were in bondage? But also, what did it do to those who enforced it? Painter is insistent in her refusal to cave to the “national hunger for simplifying history.” She is a dogged corrector of the public record. She has even included in this book a letter to the editor she had published in the New Yorker in 2022, in which she carefully disentangles Truth from the famous slogan.

Painter does not limit her sharp critiques to distant ancestors and abolished institutions; she considers still-vibrant personalities and more recent upheavals. She takes us back to the Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas in 1991, during which Anita Hill, in the pre-#MeToo era, testified to Thomas’s sexual harassment of her. Painter highlights the way in which Thomas forced Hill into the role of spoiler of circumstances that were not yet a fait accompli.

“In a struggle between himself and a woman of his same race, Thomas executed a deft strategy,” Painter writes. “He erected a tableau of White-Black racism that allowed him to occupy the position of the race . By reintroducing concepts of White power, Thomas made himself into the Black person in his story. Then, in the first move of a two-step strategy, he cast Anita Hill into the role of Black woman as traitor to the race .”

Painter continues: “The most common formula expressing minority status is ‘women and Blacks.’ As the emblematic woman is White and the emblematic Black is male, Black women generally are not as easy to comprehend symbolically.”

The racial and gender dynamics that were evident during that 20th-century Shakespearean drama continue to resonate in this century. Black music mogul Sean Combs faces accusations of harassment and violence by women over whom he wielded power. Justice Thomas remains a controversial figure, facing scrutiny over his ethics on the bench and questions about potential conflicts of interest . And Hill has become a revered standard-bearer of a new generation of women who have spoken their truth under daunting circumstances, including Christine Blasey Ford during the 2018 confirmation hearings of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh.

History simply refuses to remain in the past.

Painter is also the author of “The History of White People” (2010), an exploration of how and why certain individuals were sorted into that racial category. Its sweeping audacity left some observers bemused, not by what it said about our construction of race but by the skin color of the woman who wrote it. Painter has swagger. And in this memoir, she takes advantage of all the privileges of a historian to take an arm’s-distance look at a people, not just those who look like her . She explains Whiteness and how the concept politically evolved during the presidency of Donald Trump .

Whiteness had always been the default, the standard against which all others were measured. Social and political acceptability were based on how closely one hewed to the White ideal. To claim Whiteness as an identity, however, was problematic, because those who did so were white nationalists and supremacists. They were members of the Ku Klux Klan. White pride was a political hand grenade.

“What the time of Trump does for us now is make White Americans visible as raced Americans, as raced counterparts to Black Americans. Long-standing assumptions — that only non-Whites have racial identities, that White Americans are individuals who only have race if they’re Nazis or White nationalists — those assumptions no longer hold,” Painter writes in an essay from 2018. “I’m turning the glass around to focus on what living in a slave society did to non-Black Americans and to the society as a whole.”

Painter puts muscle and heart into history so that her readers can easily, but thoughtfully, draw the lines between past and present. Her history is inclusive, not in a pandering or self-consciously correct way, but because her artful telling of it is full of complexity that’s both beautiful and bracing.

“Once we can write the words ‘trauma’ and ‘slavery’ in the same sentence, we will have enriched our understanding of slavery’s human costs, for enslaved, enslavers, and bystanders,” she writes.

In her memoir, Painter offers an intellectual history of herself, but also a history of us. We’re lucky that she continues to talk. What she has to say can help us more fully understand ourselves — but only if we’re willing to listen.

I Just Keep Talking

A Life in Essays

By Nell Irvin Painter

Doubleday. 418 pp. $35

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.

The Starry Night by Van Gogh Essay

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Use of different colors in the starry night, representation of different colors in the painting, works cited.

The Starry Night is one of the ancient pieces of antique paintings and it has continued to draw a lot of interest in the museum galleries and art exhibitions the world over. One of the most interesting aspects in the painting is the use of colors to bring out the textural aspect in this painting.

One of the attributes that has made this painting very common is the fact that over time it has continuously been replicated by many artists and students over the course of time. There are certain very important features that make this painting to grow in popularity; perhaps the most important feature is the fact that there is a representation of the sky that is characterized by the stars that whose illumination causes a blaze that is further on enhanced by the crescent outline of the moon (Pioch, 1).

The exaggeration of these features perhaps makes the use of colors in this painting even more crucial; the fact that many people can easily identify with the scene that is represented in this painting is perhaps one of the reasons as to why it is regularly chosen by most of the student to show the effects of using different colors to represent different textures and emotions through a work of art.

Different colors represent different emotions and feelings in a work of art such as a painting; perhaps one of the most important facts in the use of color is the ability to actively involve the visual use of colors to ensure that a viewer is able to clearly visualize the painting and get a feeling of the true reflection of the scenery that is put forth in the painting.

The use of different colors in the painting can serve to bring different emotions to a viewer; originally, Van Gogh was able to make use of the color textures to show the peaceful essence of the hills and horizons (Pioch, 1).

The cool dark colors are able to revive memories of the early childhood years in addition to spurring on the imagination; a viewer is able to get an imagination of what exists in the skies and also creates a sense of distance.

It is also important to consider the fact in the original paintings the colors are used to bring out a sense of size in the painting, a change of the colors will bring an entirely different aspect with regard to size. Another important aspect use of color is the ability to bring out the aspect of isolation of certain structures in the painting; the dark colors used in this regard are able to bring out the massiveness of the structure in the painting. Finally the colors used in the structure enables the viewer to be able to make their own analysis of the background features in the painting including the bushes and the variety of objects in the painting (Pioch, 1).

It is important and crucial to note that the use of different colors in a painting bring out different effects and interpretation on the part of the viewer, in this case a change of the colors from those that were originally used by Van Gogh will ultimately create a different interpretation of the painting by the viewer.

This is because the texture will change and this will result in a different effect in terms of emotions; another important aspect is the representations of the reflections of the different colors in the skyline that will be definitely affected by the change of the colors.

In the modified paintings it is important to consider the motivation for the use of the paintings that were selected; one of the important aspects is that the different colors that have been chosen actually represent different feelings and emotions and also they do affect the overall texture which ultimately has an effect on the painting in terms of distance.

In the second painting a few aspects have been changed and these include the background colors which have changed form a light blue to a dark blue color, the structure in the foreground has also been modified and the dark color has been made more vivid; perhaps the most important aspect of the painting that has been affected by the change of the colors is the aspect of distance; in the original painting, the artist was able to clearly bring out the aspect of distance but as a result of the modifications in the second painting, the distance seems to have been significantly reduces as a result o the color choices.

In the third and fourth paintings there is a kind of complete overhaul of the colors resulting in a completely different interpretation of the painting; one of the important aspects of the Van Gogh Painting was the fact that the use of the white and yellow colors was able to create a spiral effect that brings out a textural effect to represent the skies.

In the third painting it is important to note that the change of the colors that are associated with fewer echoes creates an entirely different effect in the picture. In this painting the aspect of distance seems to have altogether disappeared and the as the colors used for both the background and the structure in the foreground are similar, therefore the use of color in this painting modifies the texture of the painting resulting in the disappearance of the aspect of distance that had been vividly represented in the original painting.

There is however some aspects that are still eminent in this painting as the colors used still create some kind of contrast in the picture despite the change of colors.

The aspect of illumination that had also been associated with the stars as shown clearly in the previous painting is also absent in this painting; the change of the colors in this aspect also creates a change in the interpretation of this new color scheme.

In the final painting, the use of the green color to engulf the whole painting creates a kind of silhouette that leads to a disappearance of the illumination as well as the distance that had been created in the painting.

The use of the bright colors in this aspect therefore leads to merging of the various objects in the painting and they all appear to be in the same place and context. This therefore creates a clear distinction between the use of the bright and the dark colors.

It is evident from the use of the different color themes in the painting that the use of different and contrasting colors results in different textures in a painting that ultimately creates different emotions in for the viewer of a painting.

However in the Starry night, the aspect that is changed in the painting is the effect of distance and distinction between the various features that are represented in the painting. The use of the different colors in the four paintings therefore creates different interpretations of the paintings as is clearly evident.

Pioch, Nicolas. Gogh, Vincent van: The Starry Night . Paris: Web Museum. 2002. Print.

• How to Create Masterpiece Art in Examples
• The Importance of Art for People
• The Poem “She Walks in Beauty” by Lord Byron
• Madonna of the Meadows and Madonna of the Long Neck
• The Analyzing of Paintings “Cranes” in Edo Period
• Waterloo Bridge by Claude Monet
• Art History - Mona Lisa
• Illustration' Evolution in 20th Century
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2019, March 28). The Starry Night by Van Gogh. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-starry-night-by-van-gogh/

"The Starry Night by Van Gogh." IvyPanda , 28 Mar. 2019, ivypanda.com/essays/the-starry-night-by-van-gogh/.

IvyPanda . (2019) 'The Starry Night by Van Gogh'. 28 March.

IvyPanda . 2019. "The Starry Night by Van Gogh." March 28, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-starry-night-by-van-gogh/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Starry Night by Van Gogh." March 28, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-starry-night-by-van-gogh/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Starry Night by Van Gogh." March 28, 2019. https://ivypanda.com/essays/the-starry-night-by-van-gogh/.

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The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza

The “harvard law review” refused to run this piece about genocide in gaza.

The piece was nearing publication when the journal decided against publishing it. You can read the article here.

Harvard students protest for Palestine during the Yale-Harvard football game at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, CT November 18, 2023.

On Saturday, the board of the Harvard Law Review voted not to publish “The Ongoing Nakba: Towards a Legal Framework for Palestine,” a piece by Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School. The vote followed what an editor at the law review described in an e-mail to Eghbariah as “an unprecedented decision” by the leadership of the Harvard Law Review to prevent the piece’s publication. Eghbariah told The Nation that the piece, which was intended for the HLR Blog, had been solicited by two of the journal’s online editors. It would have been the first piece written by a Palestinian scholar for the law review. The piece went through several rounds of edits, but before it was set to be published, the president stepped in. “The discussion did not involve any substantive or technical aspects of your piece,” online editor Tascha Shahriari-Parsa, wrote Eghbariah in an e-mail shared with The Nation . “Rather, the discussion revolved around concerns about editors who might oppose or be offended by the piece, as well as concerns that the piece might provoke a reaction from members of the public who might in turn harass, dox, or otherwise attempt to intimidate our editors, staff, and HLR leadership.” On Saturday, following several days of debate and a nearly six-hour meeting, the Harvard Law Review ’s full editorial body came together to vote on whether to publish the article. Sixty-three percent voted against publication. In an e-mail to Egbariah, HLR President Apsara Iyer wrote, “While this decision may reflect several factors specific to individual editors, it was not based on your identity or viewpoint.” In a statement that was shared with The Nation , a group of 25 HLR editors expressed their concerns about the decision. “At a time when the Law Review was facing a public intimidation and harassment campaign, the journal’s leadership intervened to stop publication,” they wrote. “The body of editors—none of whom are Palestinian—voted to sustain that decision. We are unaware of any other solicited piece that has been revoked by the Law Review in this way. “ When asked for comment, the leadership of the Harvard Law Review referred The Nation to a message posted on the journal’s website. “Like every academic journal, the Harvard Law Review has rigorous editorial processes governing how it solicits, evaluates, and determines when and whether to publish a piece…” the note began. ”Last week, the full body met and deliberated over whether to publish a particular Blog piece that had been solicited by two editors. A substantial majority voted not to proceed with publication.” Today, The Nation is sharing the piece that the Harvard Law Review refused to run.

Genocide is a crime. It is a legal framework. It is unfolding in Gaza. And yet, the inertia of legal academia, especially in the United States, has been chilling. Clearly, it is much easier to dissect the case law rather than navigate the reality of death. It is much easier to consider genocide in the past tense rather than contend with it in the present. Legal scholars tend to sharpen their pens after the smell of death has dissipated and moral clarity is no longer urgent.

Some may claim that the invocation of genocide, especially in Gaza, is fraught . But does one have to wait for a genocide to be successfully completed to name it? This logic contributes to the politics of denial . When it comes to Gaza, there is a sense of moral hypocrisy that undergirds Western epistemological approaches, one which mutes the ability to name the violence inflicted upon Palestinians. But naming injustice is crucial to claiming justice. If the international community takes its crimes seriously, then the discussion about the unfolding genocide in Gaza is not a matter of mere semantics.

The UN Genocide Convention defines the crime of genocide as certain acts “committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.” These acts include “killing members of a protected group” or “causing serious bodily or mental harm” or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”

Numerous statements made by top Israeli politicians affirm their intentions. There is a forming consensus among leading scholars in the field of genocide studies that “these statements could easily be construed as indicating a genocidal intent,” as Omer Bartov, an authority in the field, writes . More importantly, genocide is the material reality of Palestinians in Gaza: an entrapped , displaced , starved , water-deprived population of 2.3 million facing massive bombardments and a carnage in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Over 11,000 people have already been killed . That is one person out of every 200 people in Gaza. Tens of thousands are injured , and over 45% of homes in Gaza have been destroyed . The United Nations Secretary General said that Gaza is becoming a “ graveyard for children ,” but a cessation of the carnage—a ceasefire—remains elusive. Israel continues to blatantly violate international law: dropping white phosphorus from the sky, dispersing death in all directions , shedding blood, shelling neighborhoods , striking schools , hospitals , and universities , bombing churches and mosques , wiping out families , and ethnically cleansing an entire region in both callous and systemic manner. What do you call this?

The Center for Constitutional Rights issued a thorough, 44-page, factual and legal analysis, asserting that “there is a plausible and credible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinian population in Gaza.” Raz Segal, a historian of the Holocaust and genocide studies, calls the situation in Gaza “a textbook case of Genocide unfolding in front of our eyes.” The inaugural chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, notes that “Just the blockade of Gaza—just that—could be genocide under Article 2(c) of the Genocide Convention, meaning they are creating conditions to destroy a group.” A group of over 800 academics and practitioners, including leading scholars in the fields of international law and genocide studies, warn of “a serious risk of genocide being committed in the Gaza Strip.” A group of seven UN Special Rapporteurs has alerted to the “risk of genocide against the Palestinian people” and reiterated that they “remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide.” Thirty-six UN experts now call the situation in Gaza “a genocide in the making.” How many other authorities should I cite? How many hyperlinks are enough?

And yet, leading law schools and legal scholars in the United States still fashion their silence as impartiality and their denial as nuance. Is genocide really the crime of all crimes if it is committed by Western allies against non-Western people?

This is the most important question that Palestine continues to pose to the international legal order. Palestine brings to legal analysis an unmasking force: It unveils and reminds us of the ongoing colonial condition that underpins Western legal institutions. In Palestine, there are two categories: mournable civilians and savage human-animals . Palestine helps us rediscover that these categories remain racialized along colonial lines in the 21st century: the first is reserved for Israelis, the latter for Palestinians. As Isaac Herzog, Israel’s supposed liberal President, asserts : “It’s an entire nation out there that is responsible. This rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, it’s absolutely not true.”

Palestinians simply cannot be innocent . They are innately guilty; potential “terrorists” to be “neutralized” or, at best, “ human shields ” obliterated as “ collateral damage ”. There is no number of Palestinian bodies that can move Western governments and institutions to “unequivocally condemn” Israel, let alone act in the present tense. When contrasted with Jewish-Israeli life—the ultimate victims of European genocidal ideologies—Palestinians stand no chance at humanization . Palestinians are rendered the contemporary “savages” of the international legal order, and Palestine becomes the frontier where the West redraws its discourse of civility and strips its domination in the most material way. Palestine is where genocide can be performed as a fight of “ the civilized world ” against the “enemies of civilization itself.” Indeed, a fight between the “ children of light ” versus the “children of darkness.”

The genocidal war waged against the people of Gaza since Hamas’s excruciating October 7th attacks against Israelis—attacks which amount to war crimes —has been the deadliest manifestation of Israeli colonial policies against Palestinians in decades. Some have long ago analyzed Israeli policies in Palestine through the lens of genocide . While the term genocide may have its own limitations to describe the Palestinian past, the Palestinian present was clearly preceded by a “ politicide ”: the extermination of the Palestinian body politic in Palestine, namely, the systematic eradication of the Palestinian ability to maintain an organized political community as a group.

This process of erasure has spanned over a hundred years through a combination of massacres, ethnic cleansing, dispossession, and the fragmentation of the remaining Palestinians into distinctive legal tiers with diverging material interests. Despite the partial success of this politicide—and the continued prevention of a political body that represents all Palestinians—the Palestinian political identity has endured. Across the besieged Gaza Strip, the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, Israel’s 1948 territories, refugee camps, and diasporic communities, Palestinian nationalism lives.

The Nation Weekly

What do we call this condition? How do we name this collective existence under a system of forced fragmentation and cruel domination? The human rights community has largely adopted a combination of occupation and apartheid to understand the situation in Palestine. Apartheid is a crime. It is a legal framework. It is committed in Palestine. And even though there is a consensus among the human rights community that Israel is perpetrating apartheid, the refusal of Western governments to come to terms with this material reality of Palestinians is revealing.

Once again, Palestine brings a special uncovering force to the discourse. It reveals how otherwise credible institutions, such as Amnesty International or Human Rights Watch, are no longer to be trusted. It shows how facts become disputable in a Trumpist fashion by liberals such as President Biden . Palestine allows us to see the line that bifurcates the binaries (e.g. trusted/untrusted) as much as it underscores the collapse of dichotomies (e.g. democrat/republican or fact/claim). It is in this liminal space that Palestine exists and continues to defy the distinction itself. It is the exception that reveals the rule and the subtext that is, in fact, the text: Palestine is the most vivid manifestation of the colonial condition upheld in the 21st century.

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What do you call this ongoing colonial condition? Just as the Holocaust introduced the term “Genocide” into the global and legal consciousness, the South African experience brought “Apartheid” into the global and legal lexicon. It is due to the work and sacrifice of far too many lives that genocide and apartheid have globalized, transcending these historical calamities. These terms became legal frameworks, crimes enshrined in international law, with the hope that their recognition will prevent their repetition. But in the process of abstraction, globalization, and readaptation, something was lost. Is it the affinity between the particular experience and the universalized abstraction of the crime that makes Palestine resistant to existing definitions?

Scholars have increasingly turned to settler-colonialism as the lens through which we assess Palestine. Settler-colonialism is a structure of erasure where the settler displaces and replaces the native. And while settler-colonialism, genocide, and apartheid are clearly not mutually exclusive, their ability to capture the material reality of Palestinians remains elusive. South Africa is a particular case of settler-colonialism. So are Israel, the United States, Australia, Canada, Algeria, and more. The framework of settler colonialism is both useful and insufficient. It does not provide meaningful ways to understand the nuance between these different historical processes and does not necessitate a particular outcome. Some settler colonial cases have been incredibly normalized at the expense of a completed genocide. Others have led to radically different end solutions. Palestine both fulfills and defies the settler-colonial condition.

We must consider Palestine through the iterations of Palestinians. If the Holocaust is the paradigmatic case for the crime of genocide and South Africa for that of apartheid, then the crime against the Palestinian people must be called the Nakba.

The term Nakba, meaning “Catastrophe,” is often used to refer to the making of the State of Israel in Palestine, a process that entailed the ethnic cleansing of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and destroying 531 Palestinian villages between 1947 to 1949. But the Nakba has never ceased; it is a structure not an event. Put shortly, the Nakba is ongoing.

In its most abstract form, the Nakba is a structure that serves to erase the group dynamic: the attempt to incapacitate the Palestinians from exercising their political will as a group. It is the continuous collusion of states and systems to exclude the Palestinians from materializing their right to self-determination. In its most material form, the Nakba is each Palestinian killed or injured, each Palestinian imprisoned or otherwise subjugated, and each Palestinian dispossessed or exiled.

The Nakba is both the material reality and the epistemic framework to understand the crimes committed against the Palestinian people. And these crimes—encapsulated in the framework of Nakba—are the result of the political ideology of Zionism, an ideology that originated in late nineteenth century Europe in response to the notions of nationalism, colonialism, and antisemitism.

As Edward Said reminds us, Zionism must be assessed from the standpoint of its victims, not its beneficiaries. Zionism can be simultaneously understood as a national movement for some Jews and a colonial project for Palestinians. The making of Israel in Palestine took the form of consolidating Jewish national life at the expense of shattering a Palestinian one. For those displaced, misplaced, bombed, and dispossessed, Zionism is never a story of Jewish emancipation; it is a story of Palestinian subjugation.

What is distinctive about the Nakba is that it has extended through the turn of the 21st century and evolved into a sophisticated system of domination that has fragmented and reorganized Palestinians into different legal categories, with each category subject to a distinctive type of violence. Fragmentation thus became the legal technology underlying the ongoing Nakba. The Nakba has encompassed both apartheid and genocidal violence in a way that makes it fulfill these legal definitions at various points in time while still evading their particular historical frames.

Palestinians have named and theorized the Nakba even in the face of persecution, erasure, and denial. This work has to continue in the legal domain. Gaza has reminded us that the Nakba is now. There are recurring threats by Israeli politicians and other public figures to commit the crime of the Nakba, again. If Israeli politicians are admitting the Nakba in order to perpetuate it, the time has come for the world to also reckon with the Palestinian experience. The Nakba must globalize for it to end.

We must imagine that one day there will be a recognized crime of committing a Nakba, and a disapprobation of Zionism as an ideology based on racial elimination . The road to get there remains long and challenging, but we do not have the privilege to relinquish any legal tools available to name the crimes against the Palestinian people in the present and attempt to stop them. The denial of the genocide in Gaza is rooted in the denial of the Nakba. And both must end, now.

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Rabea Eghbariah

Rabea Eghbariah is a human rights attorney completing his doctoral studies at Harvard Law School.

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Juneteenth is chance to acknowledge both legacy and unfinished work

It is June 19, 1865, and over 250,000 enslaved Africans are gathered in Galveston, Texas, watching the United States Union Troops approach the bay to announce that after 400 years, they are free. Just a few months prior, Abraham Lincoln had announced the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing those enslaved in Confederate territory, but not all of them were made free.

This day is known as “Freedom Eve” or “Emancipation Day” and took place on January 1, 1865. The Emancipation Proclamation might not have cemented the actual liberation of African American people in the U.S., but it was a critical turning point that led up to the country’s second Independence Day, known as Juneteenth. Understanding what Juneteenth is and recognizing its importance and the intentions of other celebrations like it is essential. 

Juneteenth, deriving from the words “June” and “Nineteenth”, is the day that marks the annual celebration of a huge step towards racial reckoning in the United States. Texas was the first state to make it a holiday in 1980, motivating other states to do the same in the years following. Finally, in 2021, Juneteenth became a national holiday. However, we must see this celebration as an obstacle that was overcome, rather than a destination. There is still much work to be done. Victories like this one encourage us to continue the fight.

Associate professor Erin Mauldin at the University of South Florida, an expert on civil war and reconstruction, talks about how “Juneteenth is neither the beginning nor the end of something.” The same article states that “the end of the Civil War and the ending of slavery didn't happen overnight and was a lot more like a jagged edge than a clean cut.” It is imperative to realize that the road ahead could be just as long as the road behind us. 

In today’s age, the celebration of Juneteenth holds a higher significance than ever before, as we take time to honor the struggles endured but also acknowledge that many of those struggles are ongoing, as it pertains to racial inequality and systemic issues that create numerous disparities for African Americans. The historical injustices we suffered had only just begun to be accounted for by the rest of the country’s population. Juneteenth holds the purpose of reminding us of progress made thus far and is a chance for our community to move forward as a whole and help each other rebuild. This holiday gives millions of African Americans an opportunity to rejoice and give thanks to God for releasing them from years of suffering and captivity. The day creates a country-wide social awareness of the journey to equality and the abolishment of slavery’s awful oppression. Additionally, observing this day as a united front inspires self-development and is a chance to reconnect to one’s roots that were all but erased during slavery and go on to encourage African Americans to keep striving for a brighter future. 

In France, Bastille Day acknowledges the fight and patience undergone to eventually reach freedom. July 14, 1880, is the day the citizens of France finally overcame King Louis XVI and his monarchy’s rule over them. Each year, they cherish this as a day of reclamation for their lives.

Every July 18th since 2010, the historical moment when Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first black president, is recognized. This day is known as Mandela Day. Mandela transformed their democracy into a more diverse selection of administration, breaking down the white power held over the country for centuries. After being elected, he shared to his citizens this powerful message; “I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities.” Just as those countries continue to commemorate those momentous turning points in history, we must continue to honor Juneteenth’s significance. 

Like Juneteenth, these important moments in history represent coming out on the other side of trials and tribulations, as well as salvaging their heritage. Universally, it is important to continue the recognition and cultivation of knowledge about Juneteenth and other celebrations akin to it, so we can mend communities back together who were violently ripped apart by domination subjugation. Breakthroughs didn’t happen without countless setbacks, but celebrations like these serve as a notion to never give up hope regardless. Juneteenth has the purpose and effect of uplifting hearts and minds to keep fighting, until justice and humanity are restored.  

Hailey Perkins is co-winner of the Taylor Academic Talent Scholarship. She is a graduate of Okemos High School and will attend Howard University.

Celebrations of freedom offer history lessons 

I imagine the words, “Ain’t nobody told me nothing!” came out of many mouths, minds and hearts when freed slaves found out they stayed in bondage 2 ½ years after other slaves had been set free.  Slavery in Texas continued 900 hundred days after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.    

In I863, the Civil War was in its third year. Many lives had been lost, and the end was nowhere in sight.  On January 1, 1863, President Lincoln enforced the signed Emancipation Proclamation.  The Emancipation Proclamation stated, “That on the first day of January, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free.“

This proclamation freed slaves that were in states that had left the union. This proclamation could only be enforced if the North won the war.  After continued fighting and the loss of many more lives, the Union won the war April 9, 1865. Then on June 19, 1865, in the state of Texas, more than 250,000 slaves were finally set free.  Their freedom came 2 ½ years after everyone else’s.  While gaining freedom was a dream come true, delayed freedom is symbolic of the continued struggle for Black Americans.   

There are many opinions regarding the celebration of Juneteenth. Many people celebrate it as the end of slavery, others don’t celebrate it at all, while others fall somewhere in between. Although Juneteenth has been celebrated for many years, it was only in 2021 that it became a national holiday.

The importance of celebrating Juneteenth is because America needs to know. Celebrating Juneteenth provides the opportunity to educate and inform our communities. Celebrating this holiday is more than remembering the past but it gives an opportunity to discuss race relations today. It allows people to have difficult conversations about hard subjects.  Ultimately, celebrating Juneteenth allows us to examine the mistakes of the past and do better in the future.

Celebrating this holiday makes us ask tough questions about the beginning of our country, our values, and our rights. Celebrating Juneteenth since the murder of George Floyd has made many people question, “Are Black people really free?” 

Juneteenth celebrations are now opportunities to discuss systemic racism, policy change, politics and ways to make sure that our lives do matter. Most importantly, it forces us to take an honest look at race relations in America, ask how are we really doing?    

There are many celebrations of freedom and independence across the world. India celebrates its freedom from British rule. Ghana celebrates its freedom from the United Kingdom. But the country whose freedom celebration identifies with me the most is the Philippines.  My paternal grandfather’s wife is from the Philippines. She shared much about her birthplace and its culture with our family. The country celebrates its freedom from Spanish rule with a celebration called Araw ng Kalayaan. 

The celebration is filled with parades, music, food and family bonding. But the Philippines has another celebration for freedom. After the Spanish rule ended, the Philippines came under the rule of America. But it was a nation that wanted to be free.  The road to independence for the Philippines is similar to the Juneteenth celebration, and the delay in freedom. The Philippines nation was supposed to become independent in 1944.  But World War II occurred and like Juneteenth that freedom was delayed for 2 full years.

On July 4, 1946, the Philippines became fully free from United States. Today, the citizens of the Philippines celebrate not one but 2 days of independence and freedom. A sign of their perseverance. These celebrations remind us to never give up.    

It is vital to continue the celebration of Juneteenth and other cultural celebrations of freedom around the world because “knowledge is power.” These celebrations symbolize more than just freedom. They are evidence that major changes in society can happen despite the odds. They provide motivation for people to stand up for basic human rights and against injustice. 

Most importantly these celebrations give us hope. They are evidence that we can be part of the change that we want to see in the world. When I think back to the first Juneteenth, that moment when the slaves realized they were enslaved 900 days longer than everyone else. That moment when they had to think, “Ain’t nobody told me nothing!” 

Well today, I told you something.  Never forget the lesson of Juneteenth or the other cultural celebrations of freedom.

Zachary Barker is co-winner of the Taylor Academic Talent Scholarship. He is a graduate of Okemos High School and will attend Michigan State University.   

The importance of why we celebrate Juneteenth

Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day, is an annual holiday recognized on June 19th in honor of the enslavement of oppressed African Americans in the United States. The festival started in Galveston, Texas, where on June 19, 1865, Union soldiers conveyed the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to the state's last surviving enslaved people, thereby ending slavery in the United States.

On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that all enslaved individuals in Confederate-held territory would be set free. However, it wasn't until the Civil War ended and Union forces landed in Texas that the word of freedom reached the remaining enslaved people. Understanding the history of Juneteenth is important, including its connection to other countries, the significance of learning about it as a child, and how it is celebrated today. 

While Juneteenth is uniquely American, it bears shared characteristics with other cultural celebrations of liberty and independence across the world. Many countries have their own celebrations, which are cultural and historical events. For example, India celebrates its independence from British dominion on August 15th of each year, remembering the day in 1947 when the country gained freedom after years of struggle and sacrifice. Similarly, Mexico commemorates its independence from Spanish colonial rule on September 16th, often known as "El Grito de Dolores." These cultural celebrations of sovereignty and liberty contain common themes such as determination and the pursuit of justice. They remind us of the challenges that persecuted populations have experienced throughout history, as well as the significance of preserving and respecting their tales. By connecting Juneteenth to other cultural celebrations, we may get a more comprehensive understanding of their significance. 

Juneteenth was recently given new attention and significance as a result of the ongoing battle for racial equality and social justice in the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement and rallies against police brutality have drawn attention to the systems of prejudice and inequality that persist in American society. As a result, recognizing and remembering Juneteenth has never been more crucial. 

At the high school level, students ought to learn about and participate in cultural celebrations of freedom and independence, such as Juneteenth. By understanding the history and significance of these festivals, students may develop a better understanding of different individuals' perspectives as well as the continued effect of historical events on our modern society. Studying Juneteenth and other cultural festivals of independence allows students to critically assess problems of race, power, and privilege. By discussing the historical foundations of systematic racism and oppression, students may obtain a better understanding of social justice concerns and the need of speaking up against injustices in their own communities. Incorporating conversations and activities about cultural celebrations of freedom and independence into the curriculum for high school can help students extend their viewpoints and get a better grasp of the complexity of history and culture. These abilities are critical for creating a more inclusive and equitable society in which all people are respected, appreciated, and celebrated. 

To summarize, Juneteenth's historical significance as a celebration of liberation and freedom for African Americans is firmly anchored in the history of slavery and the ongoing battle for equality and justice. By commemorating and celebrating Juneteenth, we recognize the significance of remembering history, comprehending the present, and working for a more fair and equitable future for everyone. Studying and recognizing these events in high school, students may get significant insights into the experiences of other groups, as well as the ongoing efforts for freedom and equality.

In today's world, when the fight for racial equality is ongoing, commemorating Juneteenth is more vital than ever, as it serves as an important awareness of the African American community's continued struggle for justice and perseverance. 

Glorie Clay is the winner of the University of Olivet Academic Talent Scholarship. She is a graduate of Lansing Christian High School and will attend Olivet.

• Local Politics
• Editorials & Letters
• Northern Kentucky
• National Politics

Contestants with Greater Cincinnati ties take home awards at Miss Ohio

Miss Shawnee Stephanie Finoti, 21, of Columbus, was named the Thursday night preliminary talent winner at the  Miss Ohio  Scholarship Program at the Renaissance Theatre for her ballet performance from "Don Quixote."Miss Greater Cleveland Lucabella LaEace, 20, of Cincinnati, took home the health and fitness preliminary award during the first night of preliminary competition on the Miss Ohio stage.

Friday night, two Miss Ohio contestants will again be chosen as preliminary talent and health/fitness winners.

Stephanie Finoti

Finoti is majoring in biomedical science and public health at the University of Cincinnati and her platform or community service initiative is "That STEM Girl: How mentorship drives diversity in medicine." She made her second trip to the Miss Ohio stage this year. She plans to continue her education at medical school and become a pediatrician and focus on the care of premature babies.

She began dancing at age 2 because she could not walk straight as she was bow-legged, she said during an interview after the Miss Ohio show.

She said there is just something about the discipline in ballet that speaks to her. She also loves classical music.

"I feel very, very grateful for this award," she said. "Five years ago I had a career-ending injury and I didn't think I was going to be able to dance again until last year when I decided to come to Miss Ohio for the first time. ... And a year later, here I am, showing my talent on the Miss Ohio stage and winning the talent award. It means the world to have been able to regain my gift and my strength."

Saying she is Latino, Finoti said she loves bringing her culture on stage and the ballet number shows her personality.

More: Miss Lake Festival's Teen Allie Gray, of Celina, wins Miss Ohio's Teen on first try

Lucabella LaEace

LaEace, 20, a nursing student at Thomas More University in Crestview Hills, Kentucky, said she was grateful to receive the health and fitness award because fitness is a big part of her life.

"I have early-morning clinicals, late-night studying, but you have to make time to work out. I have a personal trainer and I also teach fitness classes with her," LaEace said.

Her community service initiative is "Let's talk; Let's listen: Ending the silence surrounding suicide."

It was a night of music, songs and dance numbers on the Miss Ohio stage.

Reigning Miss Ohio Madison Miller, who will give up her title Saturday night when a new Miss Ohio is crowned, joined featured vocalists for musical stage productions. Little Miss Buckeyes also danced on stage during a fun-filled night of music with Miss Ohio's Teens contestants. A crowd-pleaser was a musical number including hits such as "The Last Dance" and "We Are Family" showcasing local talents Jody Odom Jr. and Deon J. Taylor, among others.

Miss Ohio contestants are judged in health and fitness, 20%; talent, 20%; private interview, 30%; evening gown, 20%; and on stage conversation, 10%.

Miss Ohio contestants take home awards

Miss Ohio contestants took home scholarship awards for writing Americanism essays, community service essays and awards they won from the annual Miss Ohio camping outing this spring. Miss Rock & Roll City Grace Riegel, of Mansfield, was awarded the Spirit of the Pines Award, given to the best camper.

Americanism awards went to Miss Heart of Ohio Marina DeNunzio, 21, of Shaker Heights, and Miss Clayland Brittney Putman, 21, of Grove City. Community Service Awards were given to Miss Northern Ohio Caitlin Seifert, 25, of Niles, and Miss Gem City Diamond Coleman, 27, of Dayton.

More Miss Ohio shows yet this week

Twenty-seven contestants are vying for the Miss Ohio crown.

The second night of Miss Ohio preliminary competition at the Miss Ohio stage begins at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Preshow begins at 7:05 p.m.

On Saturday, it's the Miss Ohio finals and a new Miss Ohio will be crowned. The show begins at 7:30 p.m., preshow at 7:05 p.m. The winner will receive a $10,000 scholarship and the opportunity to compete at Miss America. Miss Ohio Executive Director Steven Oliveri said $52,100 in scholarships will be awarded at Miss Ohio. Ten semifinalists will be selected plus one lucky contestant will be the People's Choice winner, becoming the 11th semifinalist.

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StarTribune

Big names like joan didion and carrie fisher pop up in glittering memoir 'the friday afternoon club'.

From the moment he was born, Griffin Dunne was surrounded by people who told good stories, some of which had the virtue of being true.

The storytellers included his father, Dominick (Nick) Dunne, a television and movie producer; mother Ellen (Lenny) Griffin; aunt Joan Didion, a pioneer of the "New Journalism," uncle, screenwriter, novelist and critic John Gregory Dunne; as well as scores of celebrities who attended the parties hosted by these two "it" couples.

In "The Friday Afternoon Club," Dunne supplies anecdotes about A- and B-list entertainers, his mostly misspent youth, gigs as an usher in Radio City Music Hall and as an actor and producer, and Carrie Fisher, the soulmate with whom he shared an apartment in Manhattan while she was filming "Star Wars."

At bottom, however, the memoir is a biography of Griffin's extraordinary and ordinary family, as they struggled with sexual incompatibility, substance abuse, divorce, career setbacks, financial problems, sibling rivalries, multiple sclerosis, mental illness, the murder of Griffin's 22-year-old sister Dominique, shortly after her breakthrough role in the horror movie "Poltergeist," and the trial of the boyfriend who strangled her.

By turns quirky, candid, passionate, heart-rending and inspiring, "The Friday Club" is a splendidly told tale of the tragicomedy we call life.

Although 80% of couples divorce after losing a child, Dunne indicates that his parents seemed to fall back in love. Once annoyed at Dominick's penchant for name-dropping and dark humor, Lenny now enjoyed her former husband's reprise of a story about the night David Selznick had a heart attack during a dinner party and said, as he was wheeled out on a stretcher, "Thanks for coming. Hope you had a lovely evening."

Ironically, the tragedy helped Dominick launch a second career. In March 1984, Vanity Fair magazine published his essay, "Justice: A Father's Account of the Trial of His Daughter's Killer." Dominick became a regular Vanity Fair contributor, the author of bestselling novels and host of a TV series featuring real-life cases of crime involving wealthy and well-connected people, covering the trials of O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bülow and the Menendez brothers.

Griffin's parents didn't forgive John Dunne and Didion for sitting out the murder trial. Estranged for many years, the Dunne brothers reconciled after each of them had a heart attack and they met, by chance, at the office of the cardiologist they did not know they shared.

Surprisingly, perhaps, Griffin ends the narrative of his own life in 1990. Despite critical success as producer and star of the film "After Hours," Dunne's self-destructive instincts kicked in and his career floundered. But after having a child with Carey Lowell, his wife and co-star on disastrous film "Me and Him," Griffin became a father.

"Oh, Dominique," he whispered, "look what I have. Isn't she beautiful?"

Glenn C. Altschuler is an emeritus professor of American Studies at Cornell University.

The Friday Afternoon Club: A Family Memoir

By: Griffin Dunne.

Publisher: Penguin, 400 pages, $30.

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• Monmouth County
• Ocean County
• NJ Politics

Toms River man arrested after Wednesday night shooting that sent one to hospital

TOMS RIVER - A Toms River man has been charged with aggravated assault after a shooting Wednesday night that sent one to the hospital, Ocean County Prosecutor Bradley D. Billhimer announced Thursday.

Anthony Brown, 20, was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose and unlawful possession of a weapon, all in connection with an incident that occurred Thursday in Toms River, Billhimer said.

At approximately 11:30 p.m., Toms River Township Police responded to a residence on Adams Avenue for a report of a gunshot victim, according to the prosecutor. Responding officers found a 24 year-old male victim with a gunshot wound to his leg.  He was taken to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune where he was treated and subsequently released.

An investigation by the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crime Unit and Toms River Township Police Department revealed that Brown retrieved a handgun from the subject residence and fired two shots at the victim’s vehicle, striking the victim, Billhimer said. Brown then fled the scene. 

A short time later, Brown was taken into custody at his residence without incident, according to Billhimer. Brown was taken to the Ocean County Jail where he is presently lodged pending a detention hearing.

Jenna Calderón covers breaking news and cold cases in Monmouth and Ocean counties. Before coming to the Press, she covered The Queen City for Cincinnati Magazine in Ohio. Contact her at 330-590-3903; [email protected]

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Romeo and Juliet — Examples of Night Metaphors

Examples of Night Metaphors

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