Revitalization of the Daugava Riverside by the City of Riga

Urban contextHistory and urban development alterationsRiga is the capital of Latvia which is a Northern province of Europe. The city is acceptable known by the Historic nation engraved in UNESCO’s World Heritage List on 4 December 1997, is considered of one of the biggest and dynamic city in Northern Europe whit the whole nation is 304,2 square kilometers and the populace around 713,000 in inhabitants. The Riga city has a truly long and bounteousness history which has an incredible impact to the urban setting of the city. Especially in the 19Thursdayand 20Thursdaycentury, when World War I and World War II happened, the state is under controlled of Russian Empire ( 1721 †1917 ) , Germany ( 1917 †1918, 1941 †1944 ) and Soviet Union ( 1940 †1941, 1944 †1991 ) which changes the human advancement each piece great as the way of life of individuals, the urban development and building of the entire city is shifted and complex. During the clasp of the Russian Empire and Germany, Riga is a seaport city which is the most vivacious and dynamic with more than 800,000 mechanical laborers from Baltic state, Riga become the third biggest city in term of the figure of laborers after Moscow and Saint Peterburg. The estimation of the Daugava waterway and its waterfront was upgraded yet it is overwhelmed for ports and plants. As a result, the number of inhabitants in Riga city expanded quickly which obliged the interest of housing and infinites. More houses were manufactured yet blending to Russian military mandate, the individuals just have the consent to develop wooden house in rural areas. In 1812, the wooden houses were pulverized by war and they were remade yet at the same time follow the old wooden signifier. In mid-nineteenth century, the wooden houses have brought up in figure and became encircled the city community. These houses these days is a legacy and influences emphatically to the conservation strategy a nd urban hypothesis. In 1860, another maestro program with road, squares of level, exchange building and park were set up. Another rail course was opened which animated the advancement of rural areas and plants, Riga port at that clasp has the most elevated gross in Russian Empire, the stream bank was grown quickly. It prompted an outcome that the monetary framework and the city life existed with a solid association which is the central nature of the advancement undertaking in the great beyond. In the time of So Viet Union, another urban program was endorsed with the structure of the large graduated table housing undertaking each piece known as â€Å"mikrorayon† and the railroad belt environing the city community. Other than that, the development with the basic stature, for example, Television tower ( 368m ) , Latvian foundation of logical order ( 108m ) were worked, alongside it Numberss of engineering propensities were showed up in the urban setting of Riga and one of those is the Art Nouveau which have explicit design and the limitation of building height of 5 stories. The adjustments in urban development in the Soviet Union occasions have the strong effects on the arrangement of safeguarding in the current clasp each piece so as the high limitation of structure in the city. Riga city from holding independency stone earth now ( 1991 †presently ) has the significant turn of events. After 1995, city began to reproduce the significant structure and housing which is considered as a thunder in working at that cut, the administration and new guide buildings was set up in suburbia, endeavors have been made to recuperate social image, noteworthy worth and houses which are lost after the second World War. In the Riga specific program of 2006 †2025, the new Riga place has been made with the dreams: arranged as a nation which is differentiate the Old Riga in the correct bank of Daugava stream in a cutting edge engineering and development, loaded with guide and administrations in which concern maps play as an of import work. Decrease in movement power per unit region in the Old Riga community where the old course framework to ensure the sparing purpose of the old site. A global rivalry was hold by City of Riga to design the new Riga along the left bank of the Daugava River at that clip.Site contextThe riverbank of Daugava screens truly larges areas in the whole cityscape nation and travel alongside the improvement of Riga through chronicled timetable when the city financial framework and everyday life have a steady nexus with the waterway Bankss. From the clasp when Riga was found up to this point, the waterway has an each imperative bit non simply on the grounds that it is a city characteristic part however close to the finding in arranging and spacial independence of the city. For representation, during the clasp of Russian Empire and Soviet Union, due to the incredible capacity in H2O travel and industry, the city development has changed for the purpose of working housing for representatives and building railroad nations. From the actually right away time of 13Thursdaycentury, the foundation of Riga city was changed, for working and connecting nautical with stream travel by flatboats on Daugava, the merchandisers in Riga have made a vivacious exchanging city focus, the flow framework, building quality and detached interminable was improved for replenishing concern and weight. Until the 19Thursdaycentury, as an outcome of the fast industrialisation, the advancement of railways web and the dike of port establishments, the part of the ricer, for example, islands, waterfront, and so on was changed with the structure of mechanical items and distribution centers. It is thought to be an agreeable clasp of Riga Port each piece known as the significant port of the Russian Empire. Toward the start of 20Thursdaycentury, a segment of Riga port was as yet arranged right inverse the Old city community. The guide of the market and the seaport was terminal in 1930 when the Central Market was set up and expansive open boundless were made in the city place. In World War II, the waterway Bankss of Daugava were devastated, until 1949, they were reproduce for fundamental and neighborhood travel requests. The port created more gr ounded in lower Daugava, close to the Bay of Riga. At a similar clasp, the creating industrialized nations along the riverbank showed up compositionally distractively and hinder the handiness of residents. Presents, Riga city has a create program to work and recreate the estimation of the left bank and the correct bank of Daugava stream. The bing issue is crossing the stream by Bridgess causes roads turned parking lots in flurry hours as a result of the skyscraper of automobiles and individual travel implies. The infinites of Daugava waterway is characterized by its neglected Bankss and aquatorium which is non viewed as a segment of consolidate urban condition in truly and mentally. Be that as it may, because of the effects in spacial making and urban improvement in the days of old, the Daugava stream can be comprehended as ‘the waterway of possibilities’( Dace Kalvane, 2010 ) . Its infinites can do a general situation of city position and lift. In any case, the handiness is forestall by bing foundations, for example, length dish slants and blood vessel streets which take bringing down the risks of waterway Bankss redevelopment and communication for open network with water fronts. The bustling traffic streams separate the strolling waies and redirection zones from the waterway Bankss. There is an insufficiency of bicycle streets framework in Daugava stream nations. Those things prompted an outcome that the stream is about surrendered, it turned out to be all the more unmistakably when the old advancements which were made in the days gone by have lost their capacity in city financial framework and ebb and flow improvements have no association with the waterway. The improvement plans for Riga city from 2006 to 2025 hope to quicken the nexus with Daugava for doing a functioning waterfront. In this way, a fluctuated amplification of the riverbanks from various nations, for example, compartment port and product house nation will be created. The structure of business, touristry destinations, common walk ways and bicycle streets which start from suburbia to city focus would be a fascinating vision of substructures.Undertaking analysingUndertaking debutThe building, recovery of Daugava riverbank and new present day urban one-fourth every piece great as its employments being developed has become a test and boss request in a few rivalries and workshops hold by the City of Riga. One of those is the culmination named â€Å"The forthcoming structure on Mukusalas Street, Buru Street un Kilevina Ditch† happened in 2006 to 2007. As the victor of this opposition, the endeavor called â€Å"City of squares city of towers† presented a major nation of new urban tissue on the left bank of Daugava stream which is inverse with Old Riga place and has the main quality is the H2O components and its of import work in the history. The endeavor has a place with the expansion of ensured UNESCO zone. The proposed maestro program incorporates the advancement of an arrangement of squares, open infinites, blend utilized structure and flexibleness. Those squares and towers contribute in indicating their dynamic encompassing and development nation. Moreover, providing doable guidelines to ensure an explained fellowship become more cardinal than the components make it. The main purposes of this endeavor is the frameworks of squares and tower which make the casing position of create nation of Riga city. The new create nation is the hypothetical record of since quite a while ago run vison of the city, make another full guide which parcel the power per unit region of travel and tenant with the Old Riga place, helping with sparing the human progress and legacy which is the most point gone to in attempted over the universe in all things considered and in Europe exceptionally. In the article â€Å"Measuring urb

Adolf Hitlers Rise To Power To Rule Germany History Essay

My location is about the life of a German corporal who battled in World War I, got 2 embellishments, joined the German Worker ‘s Party, drove it, and partook in World War II, as the pioneer of Germany. At the end of the day, my location is about Adolf Hitler. Since none of us would be intrigued to be re-told the story of the subsequent World War, I will focus mostly on Hitler ‘s ascend to control, which happened between the 2 World Wars. I would wish to parcel with you Hitler ‘s ascend to control, from the terminal of World War I in 1919 rock mud Hitler ‘s presidential term in 1934.Body:Even however World War I finished seriously for Germany, which supported awful monetary, military, and human losingss, Hitler stayed in the German Army and filled in as a constabulary covert specialist whose strategic to invade a little gathering called the German Worker ‘s Party. Blending to Richard Bessel in his book â€Å" Nazism and War † , it was so when Hitler was intrigued and captivated in the counter semitic, against Marxist, and hostile to entrepreneur considerations that this gathering supported. As Hitler ‘s addresss developed increasingly more mainstream in the gathering collections, an establishing part called Dietrich Eckhart found an inclusion in Hitler. Hitler references him in his collection of memoirs â€Å" My Struggle † as his savvy man. Eckhart helped Hitler dress richly, engage individuals to fall in the reason, and run into of import individuals in the specialists In March 1920, as Hitler developed increasingly well known, he assumed responsibility for the gathering and had it renamed to the National Socialist German Worker ‘s Party, and was later released from the military, orchestrating to â€Å" The Hitler Book † . ( Passage: Now that we know how Hitler picked up fame genuinely quick, permit ‘s perceive how he utilized it for his potential benefit. ) In 1924, Hitler was tired from the feeble German specialists and endeavored a putsch in Munich which he alluded to as the Beer Putche in his second book named â€Å" The Secret Book † . His exertion was thwarted by the German military and Hitler was condemned to 5 mature ages of gaol. Incidentally, a similar grown-up male who caused to Jewish race murder got his sentence decreased to 9 months because of good conduct, however Hitler took in his exercise. As his life on www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org expressed, Hitler ‘s bondage â€Å" changed him from an unfit traveler into a keen political strategist † . In this manner in 1925, after Hitler other than figured out how to unban his gathering and recuperate approval to give open addresss, he effectively got more individuals to fall the Nazi party. His speech achievements helped him pass on Left and Right flying movements together, and Hitler was prepared to go in the races. In 1928, Hitler began by holding a unimportant 2 % of the polling forms and 12 seats in the Reichstag. At that point, he moved his strategies ; Hitler prevailed upon the industrialists, the conservativists, and even the Army circles. Furthermore, in 1930, he oversaw 18 % of the polling forms with 107 seats. Two mature ages in this manner, Hitler got 37 % of the voting forms with 230 seats. ( Passage: Now that Hitler framed an effective gathering with more than 200 seats in the Reichstag, permit us see his definitive ascent to control, the best approach to presidential term. ) Fitting to â€Å" The Hitler Book † , the Nazis began inferring cardinal places in the specialists, and Hitler was non fulfilled. In 1933, President Hindenburg delegated Hitler as Chancellor. Furthermore, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, Hitler helped the Nazi party by dousing its resistances, by blue penciling the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party, and consequently by pronouncing the Nazi party as the solitary legitimate gathering in Germany. At that point in 1934, after President Hindenburg ‘s perish, Hitler expected offer as the Leader and Chancellor of the Third Reich, holding 85 % of the polling forms. In the wake of taking control strategically, Hitler began forcing military pioneers to empty their stations only to be filled without anyone else or other individual Nazis so all the state ‘s forces would be left in the guardianships of one grown-up male, himself.Decision:In choice, despite the fact that Hitler had lifted the state from the financial downturn it was suffering, he got greedier and took his capacity yearning to an entirely different degree, a war on the entirety of Europe, which drove him to a descending winding bing him the war, the state, and his life. My expectation was non only to illuminate you regarding within informations of Hitler ‘s ascend to control, yet next to of the strategies behind that. How would one be able to grown-up male expansion so much force so quick? In his book â€Å" My Struggle † , Hitler said that the answer is in his capacity of influence by his moving addresss. His speech achievements drove the German individuals to swear him to run their state. In the event that a grown-up male, who thusly murdered 1000000s of Jews, was chosen president because of his unwritten achievements, what might individuals, having these equivalent unwritten achievements, yet with great purposes, along these lines do throughout everyday life?

Crisis Management Communication Plan Essay

Make a 750-to 1,050-word emergency the board correspondence plan for a medicinal services association or human services setting with which you are recognizable. Remember the accompanying for your arrangement:  · A clarification of how correspondence elements may vary in the midst of emergency, mass injury, or fiasco  · Three different ways to decrease worry during an emergency  · Three different ways to determine potential correspondence challenges Refer to at any rate two friend assessed references supporting the methodologies utilized in your correspondence plan. School life is vastly different than life at home. Your folks aren’t there to help at whatever point you need them and you’ll be depended with unquestionably more obligation than you’re used to. Ensure you remain composed and deal with your time admirably or you’ll wind up suffocating in your freshly discovered obligations. There is HCS 350 Week 5 Crisis Management Communication Plan in this pack. General Questions †General Questions Asset: Assignment Grading Criteria: Crisis Management Plan Make a 750-to 1,050-word emergency the board correspondence plan for a medicinal services association or social insurance setting with which you are natural. Remember the accompanying for your arrangement:  · A clarification of how correspondence elements may contrast in the midst of emergency, mass injury, or fiasco  · Three different ways to diminish worry during an emergency  · Three different ways to determine potential correspondence challenges Refer to in any event two friend assessed references supporting the methodologies utilized in your correspondence plan. School life is entirely different than life at home. Your folks aren’t there to help at whatever point you need them and †¦ Quest for additional instructional exercises here †https://bitly.com/12CbKhM School life is entirely different than life at home. Your folks aren’t there to help at whatever point you need them and you’ll be depended with unquestionably more duty than you’re used to. Ensure you remain sorted out and deal with your time carefully or you’ll wind up suffocating in your freshly discovered obligations. General Questions †General Questions Asset: Assignment Grading Criteria: Crisis Management Plan Make a 750-to 1,050-word emergency the executives correspondence plan for a medicinal services association or human services setting with which you are recognizable. Remember the accompanying for your arrangement:  · A clarification of how correspondence elements may contrast in the midst of emergency, mass injury, or calamity  · Three different ways to lessen worry during an emergency  · Three different ways to determine potential correspondence challenges Refer to at any rate two friend audited references supporting the techniques utilized in your correspondence plan.

Contrasting American and European Horror Movies Essay -- Movie Film Es

Differentiating American and European Horror Movies A typical objection about many film pundits is that they will in general fall over themselves in commending anything with captions, paying little heed to quality. For most pundits it appears there is a straightforward condition in dissecting remote pictures: subtitles=great moviemaking that isn't exploitative. At the point when the fringe bad-to-the-bone French film Romance (1999) was discharged pundits were unreserved with their commending of a film that bargains (seemingly) with sex in a sensible way. Indeed, even regarded folks like Roger Ebert admitted to not so much enjoy[ing] it, but I suggest it. Apparently Ebert didn't know about the reality the film utilizes filmmaking strategies like no-nonsense porno (the editors astutely remove from scenes before the cash shot can happen) and follows the direction of numerous obscene movies wherein a nubile youthful girl goes from man to man with an end goal to discover climax. A similar example likewise applies to outside repulsiveness. Remote frightfulness is irritable and climatic while American awfulness is modest and exploitative. What many neglect to see is that both outside and American repulsiveness utilize a considerable lot of similar pictures and gadgets. In the unmistakable universe that is the blood and gore movie both the better quality pictures (for this situation the remote thrillers) end up among the alleged exploitative low-end (American awfulness). Every now and again in film investigation it is, as Joan Hawkins states, disregarded or repressed...to how much high culture exchanges on similar pictures, tropes, and topics which describe low culture. A fine case of the detachment of remote and American repulsiveness can be found in an examination between Dario Argento's Suspiria and Sean S. Cunningham's Friday the thirteenth (1980)... ... similarly bloody and similarly exploitative Suspiria is Friday the thirteenth's accentuation on physical infringement. Suspiria likewise moves in the direction of making dread through physical torment, yet it is set in what could be best named a fantasy world, though Friday is set in a progressively sensible (to American crowds at any rate), non-fanciful setting. Thusly the physical infringement in Friday is made increasingly dire, it hits nearer to home, than a great part of the strange killing in Argento's piece. In viewing Suspiria the crowd is allowed to realize that the movie producers realize that all they are doing is playing a head game, while in Friday the thirteenth the crowd is stuck in their seats watching killing in the wake of killing happen without advantage of a mental clarification. There is an absence of what Williams terms tasteful distance...viewers feel too straightforwardly, too instinctively, controlled by the content.

Free Essays on American Revolutions Compared

Upheavals Compared The occasions somewhere in the range of 1776 and 1828 were an amazingly dynamic time for the Americas. During those years about the entirety of the provinces looked for freedom from their supreme experts. The inquiry is the reason did a portion of these transformations admission superior to other people? What components made one nation succeed where another had fizzled? What occasions caused or affected the insurgencies? Anthony McFarlane depicts this in detail in his article â€Å"Independence and Revolution in the Americas.† He clarifies about what impacts race, governmental issues, and area had on the creating states and their particular upsets. What were the contrasts among Latin and British America, and for what reason was the subsequent government in Washington more steady than its partners in Latin America? The different transformations that occurred during the late eighteenth and mid nineteenth century took a wide range of structures, and by investigating those distinc tions and likenesses we can more readily comprehend the subsequent countries. The principal thing to see when contrasting the diverse frontier states is with see what structure colonization took in a different region. What sorts of pioneer governments were shaped? The primary factor in early colonization I accept was riches. The Spanish discovered gold and silver in Mexico and the Andes, the French and Portuguese discovered sugar, and the English discovered soil, earth and threatening Indians. The whole thought of building up provinces was to abuse wealth for the motherland or Metropolis as McFarlane calls it. The way that Spain and the other mainland European nations found that riches drove them to build up exacting and battle ready frontier governments so as to ensure that progression of riches. The English didn’t discover the riches they were looking for in the new world and their North American settlements were not exceptionally speaking to anybody. So the English had a careless view about their American provinces. They permitted the homesteaders to oversee themselves for th... Free Essays on American Revolutions Compared Free Essays on American Revolutions Compared Insurgencies Compared The occasions somewhere in the range of 1776 and 1828 were an amazingly dynamic time for the Americas. During those years about the entirety of the provinces looked for autonomy from their magnificent experts. The inquiry is the reason did a portion of these transformations admission superior to other people? What elements made one nation succeed where another had fizzled? What occasions caused or instigated the upheavals? Anthony McFarlane portrays this in detail in his article â€Å"Independence and Revolution in the Americas.† He clarifies about what impacts race, governmental issues, and area had on the creating settlements and their particular transformations. What were the contrasts among Latin and British America, and for what reason was the subsequent government in Washington more steady than its partners in Latin America? The different upsets that occurred during the late eighteenth and mid nineteenth century took various structures, and by investigating those distinc tions and similitudes we can all the more likely comprehend the subsequent countries. The main thing to see when contrasting the distinctive pioneer states is with see what structure colonization took in a different zone. What kinds of provincial governments were framed? The principle factor in early colonization I accept was riches. The Spanish discovered gold and silver in Mexico and the Andes, the French and Portuguese discovered sugar, and the English discovered soil, earth and antagonistic Indians. The whole thought of building up settlements was to abuse wealth for the motherland or Metropolis as McFarlane calls it. The way that Spain and the other mainland European nations found that riches drove them to set up exacting and battle ready frontier governments so as to secure that progression of riches. The English didn’t discover the riches they were looking for in the new world and their North American settlements were not extremely engaging anybody. So the English had an extremely remiss view about their American states. They permitted the pilgrims to ad minister themselves for th...

LSCs QA with Dean Kelley of Pixars Coco

LSC’s QA with Dean Kelley of Pixar’s Coco A couple of Fridays ago I had the opportunity to sit in on an LSC preview of the upcoming Pixar film Coco, hosted by storyboard artist Dean Kelley. Though I am not allowed to share details about the film itself (no spoilers), I have (c o m p l e t e l y p a i n l e s s l y :’-)) transcribed a bit of his guest lecture and the QA that followed. Enjoy! I’m the lead story artist for Coco. I’m from Chelmsford, so I grew up in Boston. It’s great to come back to Boston, especially a smart place like MIT where I feel really smart. So I’m going to show you guys some unreleased material and kind of go into a little bit behind the scenes of how we kind of attack these stories at Pixar. Some background on me: I joined Pixar in 2009. Like I said I’m from Chelmsford; I went to Rhode Island School of Design. I majored in Illustration and I knew I wanted to work at Disney, but I didn’t how to get there or anyone in LA or if it was something I really wanted to move to get to. I mean I loved Disney but not enough to be like “okay I’m going to move to LA and make this big jump.” So I kind of did this baby step, dip-your-toes-in-the-pool move to Minneapolis halfway across the country with my wife (girlfriend at the time) who was from there. I knew her family and I knew there was a small commercial animation studio that was there. So I’m like “that’s a nice thing and I could ease into it and know people there and not feel like I’m completely alone.” At that studio I learned a lot about animation, but it did teach me what I didn’t like to do with animation. It was a real fast turnaround but I got to paint, I got to do a little bit of design work, I got to animate, I got to work on the computers. This was back in like ’99. Eventually I was there for like a year and all my buddies that were in LA were like “you just gotta come on out, all the studios are in LA, so just come out, I don’t know what you’re doing here, you want to work at Disney, you’re not going to do it in Minneapolis.” So I finally moved out to LA. I started working at The Simpsons, and I was there for about three years. I was doing character layout which is basically taking storyboards and then blowing them up and then putting the characters on model and then the backgrounds on model, and then that gets shipped to Korea. It was fun because I loved the show, but it was not at all creatively engaging for me. So I’m like “ah, man I don’t know what to do.” Then two of my buddies from RISD created Avatar: the Last Airbender. [gasps from the nerds that have gathered for this talk] I don’t know if you guys know that show. [the gasps are replaced by laughs] You guys do? Is that yes? [resounding YES from the crowd] Okay. So t hey asked me “do you want to come and work on the show” and I was like “ah, man.” I would be leaving The Simpsons which is such a big deal because The Simpsons is primetime animation. Avatar was just like this startup show; I had no idea what it was going to be. So I went over there to do character layout and then they got rid of character layout because all the stuff that we were sending to Koreaâ€"the same way we did for The Simpsons, but it’s a little more forgiving on a show like The Simpsonsâ€"but the cinematic kind of anime approach they wanted on Avatar, we weren’t cutting it here in the States. We were doing a lot of like Danny Phantom kind of flash graphic stuff, western-style animation. Except for, well there are going to be times during this talk were it seems like I’m kind of “go me”, but out of all the stuff they sent to Korea, the Korean directors were like “we have to discontinue this because we’re spending too much money on all these layouts, except for this one guyâ€"who’s this one guy” and I’m like “oh, man.” They kind of singled me out at the studio and I’m like “oh that’s great,” and then they said “well we’re going to get rid of that, do you want to take the storyboard cuts?” And I w as like “sure” because I wanted to stay on the show, but I had no idea what storyboarding was. I learned classical drawing, painting, portraiture, and landscape design at RISD, but there was no commercial animation program at RISD. That was like my second school working with Bryan [Konietzko] and Mike [Dante DiMartino] and the other artists on Avatar where I learned how to storyboard, how to use the skills that I learned, and just made sense of drawing a lot and understanding film. I was able to apply that directly into what I did on Avatar and then I rode that to the end for about three years and then I became a director on Penguins of Madagascar, the TV show, with Nickelodeon. So I was working on that, and then right around that time I submitted my portfolio to Pixarâ€"just when I still had that Disney dream, but you know I shifted to Pixar because they were kind of the better studio and you want to work for the best and work with the best. So right when I became a director do wn at Nickelodeon, I got a phone call: “hey we want to fly you out to Pixar.” So I fly up. The interview went well, but I’m still working at Nickelodeon and I had just gotten that director gig. So I was still making those decisions that maybe you might come across in life, like for me moving from studio to studio, moving from different parts of the country, to follow what you want to do. That brought me to Pixar, and I’ve been there since 2009. I worked on Monsters University which was my first film, and then I started on Coco and that’s what I’m here to talk to you guys a little about. So I’m going to give you some background on the film and how we researched it. From a visual perspective, there’s a richness of beauty to Día de los Muertos that evokes intrigue and emotion, but even more powerful than the images is the spirit of the celebration. The more our team researched this holiday and how it’s celebrated, the more it affected us in a deep emotional way. So some of you guys might already know that the holiday Día de Muertos or Día de los Muertos is also called the Day of the Dead. It’s a Mexican celebration that takes place over two days at the beginning of November. People honor their departed family and friends by building ofrendas or altars where they display photos of their loved ones and leave out food and offerings that their loved ones en joyed. It’s become a tradition of connection, remembrance, and family, and those were kind of the early ideas of what sparked Coco. It was an idea that the director came up with about seven years ago now. It was set in Mexico on the Day of the Dead, but in order for us to figure out and flesh out the story at Pixar or with any film, research is huge. So we take trips. When I worked on MU, I actually came here. I thought I was going to go somewhere else, but they were like “no, you’re going back to your hometown.” We visited Harvard and MIT and it was cool. Nothing against the school, but I wanted to go somewhere like… I guess it’s better than Toy Story 3. They visited a dump. But like the folks on Nemo got to go to the Great Barrier Reef. So it depends on what the film is, really. I was lucky enough to get to go down to a village outside of Oaxaca, maybe forty-five minutes out, very rural. There wasn’t any electricity. They would make these ceramic pots and sculptures, and that’s what they sold to make a living. They let us come in and see how they lived, how they ate, and what we understood was how much their family was such a huge part of everything they did. They also wore such colorful clothes. It was so exciting for us, and over the last several years we were fortunate enough to go down there a few more times to see firsthand how the holiday was celebrated all over the country. As a result, these trips have influenced every part of Coco’s production, from the story, from the lighting, from characters, to the music. Everything we did was trying to make sure that we were being very respectful of the culture and the traditions that we were then trying to put back into the film, because we were so inspired by it, and we thought we could really create a unique story so we put it together. It’s something that we’re really excited about. After working on a film that focuses so much on family and music, how have your conceptions of your families changed? That’s a good question. We’re in the story room talking, even though not all of us are from Mexico, we all come from different backgrounds, different families. I’m one of four boys. My folks are still married. They’re still living in the house I grew up in. And family was such a huge part of supporting my journey like getting to Pixar. It’s like when I call my mom, we cry a little bit more, and sometimes we talk about stuff. As a parent now, I have four kids, and I feel like the appreciation of being a parent has changed from like my appreciation of my folks. But I think it’s just made it brighter. And the music and seeing the musical consultants has definitely opened my eyes. I think of parts of Mexico where the music evolved from. I think, as an artist, I can find that passion, and still wanting to learn for me as a filmmaker and storyteller, and still have family that supports me. I feel like it’s very resonant when I watch, like there are a lot of parallels. You went from a more traditional western animation background to Avatar: The Last Airbender, and now with 3D movies. Especially now that we don’t see very many 2D animated movies anymore, was it difficult to switch between these different art styles? No, I think storyboarding on a film that’s CG has more limitations for what you can do with the sets and the camera moves. Once the characters and the sets get built, it’s a virtual space where the layout artists can come in from our boards and move the camera. But with 2D, whatever you put in the boards has to be translated. Like someone has to lay that out by hand. There’s not a lot of camera operating. I feel like, you know, I’m working on The Incredibles 2 now, and a lot of the stuff that I had fun doing on Avatar (I did some of that stuff for Korra too), there’s a lot of that fun, frenetic, action filmmaking that I think lends itself into something like The Incredibles. But I feel like my approach doesn’t change. I still try to help tell the story in the best way and use any sort of visual clues and filmmaking techniques to be able to support that. Yeah I wish it was moreâ€"I think maybe Studio Ghibli, Miyazaki, is probably one of the last few filmmakers that are sti ll doing stuff by hand. I think he approaches it the same way with looking at and studying film. What would you want an audience to take away after watching Coco? Cry with your parents a little bit more, appreciate your parents. I love when I call my mom or dad. I mean I don’t get to see them that often. I got to see them last night. They came and saw a couple talks I gave last night. I think just realizing that you’re one of many people that came before you. Life is so short, and I look back and I was able to have great relationships with my grandparents, but I miss them terribly now. I kind of wish I was able to have more conversations with them as I got older. So that sliver of time that you have with people, if anything. If you come out of this film, other than going “yeah we love the film, we want to watch it again,” I think that connection to family, maybe, calling your family and reconnecting or maybe connecting more or making those conversations happen more frequently. Appreciate the people that came before you and all their hard work. What’s it like working at Pixar, especially the technological aspects? It’s great. In my role now as a story lead, I’m able to go into other meetings with the very smart people that come in and write the code that kind of looks like the Matrix when I look at the screen and I just see numbers. I know how to draw and move the story along as a filmmaker but when I see that, there’s such a great blend. That influences what we can do and then they get influenced by what we do creatively, and I feel like there’s a lot of stuff that they want the challenge of wanting to do, more stuff. The tendency has been, as Pixar has gotten bigger, there’s been sometimes where we’ve done the safe thing with certain moments, within films, not films as a whole. And I feel like a lot of technical folks were like “no, we want that challenge, we want the hard stuff, give us the hard stuff, how do we figure out simulation” and I feel like with this film, like the marigold petals, all the simulation with that, and just the rigging of a lot of these characters, the y found ways that they were really excited about, you know, because we could just come up with anything in story like “hey can we do this?” I feel like Pixar is just a really great place to embrace both; there’s a good blend of the left-brain, right-brain that comes together to create something that, hopefully, when you watch, you’re not going “how did they do that?” Well, maybe on second or third viewing. What do you love the most about being a storyboard artist? I think how long it takes and having a lot of patience. It’s kind of a disposable art. We’ll put stuff up and then we realize, we’re just trying to service the whole; sometimes we put so much into the work that if a scene does get cut you’re like “oh god that was a month of my life and it’ll never see the light of day.” Like once it gets into production, that’s when the big bucks come out, and it’s very rare that they cut scenes that are animated. So early on in the pre-production part of the story, we keep putting stuff up and then we’ll tear it down and poke holes in it to make the story as good as it can possibly be. I think a lot of it is just going “don’t look back, always move forward” and having that endurance and thick skin to go “oh well I’m servicing the whole.” And purely execution-wise it is the more films that I’ve studiedâ€"and there’s hundreds of films that I’ve never seen that we have at our disposal to watch, like live-action fil msâ€"and seeing how people saw things creatively, how they composed scenes, I feel like I’m always learning that part of it, and I can just always watch films. There’s just not enough time in the day to watch every film ever made, and there are great young filmmakers that are coming out, movies from all over the world that we get to watch, documentaries, and just seeing how people approach just shooting characters and people moving and the humanity of that. So I feel like that part I’m always learning, but the biggest thing is helping the director find their vision. If I was the director this is how I would want the scene to look, and you try to find that middle ground. I’m curious about the workflow of this sort of project because it seems like you could storyboard for years. Is that on a set timeline or what? Every three months, we put up our screening, and it’s the state of the story at that point so it’ll all be in storyboard form at that point. And we’ll watch it in the screening room and we’ll go back for a few hours with the braintrust and we’ll have lunch and kind of pick it apart, but within those three month check-ins we are looking at ways to go “is there a scene that looks like we could kind of polish it a bit more?” With this film in particular, we knew where we wanted to start and we knew what our ending was, which is kind of rare. It’s usually kind of built back, and this was good because we knew the ending so we could kind of reverse engineer that. So once we had the ending, we knew that was the scene, that we could go into the pipeline of building sets for that scene, but there is a quick turnaround and it’s gotten faster it seems. The more that we put it up, the more certain scenes start to stand out more as “let’s lock those.” So in terms of the ov erall life cycle of a film, it’s probably eight screenings and then we do an audience preview, but at that point it’s kind of the film. So it’ll be a hybrid of story, animation, plot layout, but hopefully at that point a lot of the film is animated because a lot of audiences don’t really understand or aren’t really familiar with looking at storyboards. So it’s like every three months. It’s long but I say it’s like a marathon or a race. At times it feels like you’re sprinting a marathon. Just keep moving forward, and know that you’ve got a bunch of people there just to support you to make the film. You’re not doing it alone. Is there a scene from a Pixar film that you might not have worked on that really stands out to you? That’s a great question. Yeah, I feel like that scene at the end of Incredibles before they fight where you’ve got Bob to kind of tell Helen after they got off the island to stay there and she’s like “no, we’re going in” and she’s like “what is this to you?” and then like Bob finally breaks down and says “I can’t lose you again.” That’s pretty powerful. I feel like to have a movie go into a third act and have those characters so realized in terms of the emotion, and now after being a father I don’t think I could watch the end of Nemo where he says “I love you dad” after he says “I hate you” in the beginning. And Ratatouille is one of my favorite films. I never got to work on that, and again it’s Brad Bird and he has such a different approach and it’s great to get to work with him now on Incredibles. It comes out next year, so it’s on like an accelerated schedule. But I would say scenes where you can get a lot of emotion from animated characte rs, like Walt Disney set up back in the thirties, to get invested in animated characters that aren’t real, they’re just drawings but they seem real. That’s kind of hard to do, but when it does land, it’s pretty powerful. What changes when you’re working on a sequel from with an original concept? How you adapt the assets from, for example, The Incredibles which was made in the 2000s to current technology? Yeah, sometimes we have to go in and re-rig those characters because you look at it and it looks like plastic now. What we’re able to do now, like with mouth shapes and what the animators can do is so sophisticated, especially with the hair and everything. The challenge of working on a sequel like MU, you’re kind of locked in, like you know the characters, so you don’t have to reacquaint the audience with them, like with Toy Story or Cars or The Incredibles you know who the characters are, but it’s that much harder to then go “well, what are you going to have the characters go through now, what story are you going to tell, what are they going to learn, what epiphany are they going to come onto in the third act?” I think that’s where it gets really hard. You’re in a kind of narrow playing field. I think it’s kind of more fun to work on originals because you have more leeway with this. You’re like “I don’t think Bob would do that” or “Mike and Sully wouldn†™t talk like that” “why not?” “oh the first film” “oh okay.” There’s a trailer for the first film where he says something like “oh you’ve been jealous of my looks since the third grade!” and we did the sequel, or well, the prequel, and we were like “oh my god” because they were supposed to meet in college. And we were like “let’s just forget it” and took creative license, but like we tried many versions of it to have where they met in grade school, and it was just not working, it wouldn’t work. We were handcuffed by one line from a trailer, and they were like “oh you got to be kidding me” and then we were just like “oh let’s just go I don’t think the audience would catch on.” [the nerds laugh, and someone asks “So canonically they did meet in college?”] Yes. [laughing continues] But I would say working on originals is really fun, but you’ve really got to lock into who your main character is. There are different challenges, but I fe el like you’re not as creatively handcuffed working on an original as you are in a sequel. In 3D animation, there seems to be this big difference between the tech team and the story team or like the artist team. My impression is that the artists create the stories and then people like us from MIT, engineers at Pixar, we do the simulation and the rendering. Is there a career path in Pixar or in any of the 3D animation companies you know where people bring their technologies but then also have a say in how the story goes or are also on the creative team? How does that play out? As an insider in Pixar, do you know of any examples of this or does this ever happen? I mean there’s definitely a career path dealing with that pipeline, and the brains behind the art, the people that write the code, and then the technical folk. You know Pixar creates its own software, so it’s all in-house, but by the time they get on to it the story’s kind of already moving, so when we start and I come onto the film, it’s just the director and like a handful of storyboard artists and the writer, so technical is not even involved yet. And then they come in and they do have a say on if this is feasible’ like can we actually do this. It’s not like a budgetary thing, but they can open up some avenues for our characters to be rigged a certain way that we didn’t think that we could do. But I think Disney and Pixar are the only two CG studios that have everything in-house. Like Dreamworks is farming their stuff out. I don’t really know their pipeline, but like everyone wants to work cheaper, but at Pixar there definitely is a path there. There are technical leads that come in and advise the director on certain decisions, but I honestly don’t know if people have made that jump going from technical and then going into story. I mean there are technical supervisors that are there that will help the director, like with the marigold bridge I showed, we didn’t know how we could even do this. We had like once-a-month meetings with the technical team that explained that we could do this and worked with us, but we were the ones in story that kind of came up with it based on our research trips. But I know no one ever goes from story to technical. [laughs from assembly of techies] It’ll never go that way. That just won’t happen. I’m assuming you knew of some of the directors before you started working at Pixar. How is it now working with all these people you knew about before that you see in the credits of big movies? I didn’t know any of them before I came up and I started working, and you get to know them right away. In story, you’re in those long story meetings and in those braintrusts, you get to see it’s pretty candid. The braintrust is all the directors at the studio and the creative leadership. So John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, Jim Morris, they’re all in the room with us and we all kind of just poke holes at the film. And you start to see the personalities of certain directors, some people are a little more “find the heart” and some people like Andrew Stanton, Brad Bird, these guys are like hardcore structural guys that really understand story, and they kind of check you right away. These guys are well-versed, well-read, very smart, but yeah, working with them creatively, personality comes out a lot. Like once you’re in the story room working, you’re in there for a long time, you kind of just joke around. I have a really good rapport with Brad Bird now. I’ve been working with him the last ten months, so that’s kind of fun to be like “I saw you in all those magazines and DVDs” and now after I pitch him a sequence he gets all excited and starts punching my arm like “this is great” and I’m like “thanks Brad” and that’s always great. So it is weird to go “oh my goodness you’re Brad Bird,” especially Brad, who went into live action and you know worked with George Clooney, worked with Tom Cruise, and it’s weird for him to be back just because he loves animation so much. And he loves this world of The Incredibles, so like just working with him with that live action experience was just amazing. What was your favorite scene from Avatar? Of all the scenes or the ones I did? Just in general? My favorite scene, I guess a scene that I did, I did a lot of action stuff, so I would say the Azula-Katara fight. [gasps from the crowd] I boarded that. I love the scene that Bryan Konietzko boarded, the scene where Aang fights Lord Ozai at the end. But that was pretty awesome because, like I said, that was where I learned how to storyboard and I got thrown into the fire because they knew that I could handle complex scenes, and it was always action scenes, and it was always really fun to do, and that last one was pretty fun to do because the scale of the effects were great. It’s kind of cool because Brad Bird’s kids loved the show, so he said that, and I’m like “oh that’s good, I love your work too Brad!” I know that sounds like me giving myself a big pat on my own back but I would say those big moments that I don’t think you see in western television. Like I showed my kids. You know there’s great stuff on TV but that show and how it connected with the audience, yeah it was pretty powerful. Was there a reason why you decided to have Miguel’s family be shoemakers in Coco? We wanted something that just seemed so boring for a kid to do. Like families that actually had a family business that we thought that someone could keep going from generation. We went down and we met this shoemaker down there. We went to his shop and there was this one kid that was just painting things of leather and it kind of smelled and he had headphones on. Like “is it okay if we take pictures?” He was like “yeah sure.” But he just looked like he was just doing it for the work, and we’re like “imagine if Miguel was doing that instead of playing music.” But that would be the one thing that his family loves making. You’ll see in the film just the way we made the shoe shop within the house, within the compound, they all kind of have their own station and they all kind of work together like a family unit. Miguel’s kind of out of place, and I think that was why we landed on that. It seems kind of random. I’m so used to it now, but like yeah, shoes? Weird. When you look at the opening clip and Miguel’s like “shoes? why shoes?” That’s a good question, you know. I don’t know. As a musician, I just love the music, which is huge in this. Do you guys collaborate with musicians when putting together the story? Yeah, we usually work with Michael Giacchino. He’s the composer. But then with this, this is the first time that we actually had never worked with Giacchino and we wanted to, but Giacchino wanted to make sure that they referred down to Mexico with all Mexican musicians using traditional Mexican instruments. So that was a big part we had cultural representatives and consultants that we brought in from outside that lived in Mexico just in general for the film. And then Mexican-Americans that lived in LA were brought up. And we had a lot of those folks from over Latin music, too, so we would screen them a lot of the stuff that we were doing, even just kind of road-testing stuff to see like “are we doing this right? is this authentic? is this respectful? are we doing what we should be doing?” We actually had the family members talk to one another and we were able to bake that into the script more. But for music, it was such a big part, what mariachi music is and then what tradition al kind of indigenous parts of Mexico where music comes from, so it was finding that blend. At first it was starting to go kind of Frozen-y, and we didn’t want that. And the consultants were like “don’t go there” and we were pushing back in story. I think that’s the comfortability of working in these movies for a long time. You pull from the same banks sometimes, and it’s just convenient. It kind of saves time because you’re familiar with it, but with this we wanted to make sure that we did it right and brought in the right people to shape us and keep us on the right track like tour guides. Mexican culture is pretty understanding towards death; there’s a very clear relationship, or at least better than we have here. I think that comes across in the preview we saw where someone just died and it got played off as kind of funny. So how do you handle themes of death and still make it marketable to all audiences? We always wanted to make sure that we were sensitive to it. The way I always looked at it was that this is a movie about Miguel learning about death, so he already knew obviously what death was, we all know that’s what’s going to happen to all of us and we understand. The bigger thing was more that Miguel didn’t understand how he related to his family, like “how can I relate to the people I’m related to?” that was what we were going back to. So the Land of the Dead just allowed us to have fun with the history of and the verticality of the world and layer it with the rich Mexican traditions but not really lean too hard on the death thing. It’s still there and it’s still a part of life, and we wanted it to be a part of this film. When we went down and we were in the cemeteries, we would see, at night, everything’s lit by candle and you would hear everybody playing music like guitars and trumpets. It’s all kind of a celebratory feel, and there’s food trucks, and ki ds are running around with sparklers, and it feels kind of fun. They’re celebrating the people and their lives, but then there’s people down there that have rosary beads and it’s really reverent and it’s powerful. And you see how people respond when they go and pay respects in the cemetery kind of like we do here in the States. But we try not to go too far in with that. It was more “keep it light-hearted” and “make sure the designs of the skeletons aren’t Tim Burton-y.” That was some of the stuff that was coming back from the Twittersphere that Lee [Unkrich, director of Coco] would kind of bring up in story-telling like “oh, a land of dead skeletons? it’s going to look like Tim Burton?” No… Knowing that we navigated those themes, it was more about Miguel understanding what his family tree was, and we always loved the idea of this holiday about families coming together. It would be great if you could meet your great-great-grandfather. What would you say? Is there something you’d want to ask him? So those are the things we tried to focus more on and not the sadness and permanence of death. It was more Miguel just understanding who he is and how he fits in the family. Across the board for these types of movies, where do the ideas start? The director will usually get like three ideas and work closely with an artist or a production designer to come up with a couple of paintings or just exploratory stuff and pitch that to John Lasseter, Jim Morris, and Ed Catmull. Then there’s three ideas, and they see a variety, it’s not everything on one, and then we obviously want to tell stories that we haven’t told before or give cultures or people that we’ve never dealt with a voice. We have a few films in development right now that have different ethnicities and genders that are kind of having different voices that I think Pixar hasn’t had in a while. Like it’s always easy to deal with cars or toys because there’s no ethnicityâ€"it’s a thing. But I feel like with this it all comes from the director. It’s a director-driven studio, and we want to make sure that three years in, if we’re poking holes on this one, we can always point back to “this is why I believe in this” and not “wouldn’t it be fun if it was like in outer space?” Like you really want to come from something different like Pete Docter with Inside Out. It was about his daughter and his connection growing apart from her as she got older and that was the core of the film. I don’t know what she’s thinking about, what’s going on in her head and that’s kind of where it came from. That would be like the pitch, and then they’d say “okay now make the film.” Post Tagged #LSC

Gullivers Lost Identity - Literature Essay Samples

J.R.R. Tolkein once said not all who wander are lost. It is to be assumed, then, he was not talking about Capt. Lemuel Gulliver. Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift is a narrative of the identity crisis. Capt. Gulliver is indeed lost, both literally and metaphorically. He sets out on a voyage seeking a way to fulfill his identity as the financial supporter of his family. But once he leaves the structured society of England, his sense of identity is lost. At times, he does not even consider his family back home. He is misplaced in strange countries with strange inhabitants, marooned being an appropriate term considering his nautical adventures.In his misplacement, an interesting identity-void is created; Gulliver has no way to define himself as a foreigner in a new society. The need to belong overwhelms him and he accepts any identity that is thrown his way, no matter how debasing it is. Through this void, Swift explores how society and politics systematically function to disa ssemble and reinvent the individual.In each of the countries Gulliver traverses, he is isolated from a sense of kinship and alienated from acceptance, the degree of which increases with each voyage. This alienation and isolation is surprisingly first apparent in his home country, England. In an unemotional tone he describes his family: My Father had a small Estate in Nottinghamshire; I was the Third of five Sons my Father now and then sending me small Sums of Money (p. 1). Likewise, his attachment to his wife is just as dispassionately observed: I married Mrs. Mary Burton, second daughter to Mr. Edmond Burton, Hosier, in Newgate-street (p. 2). Even in his professional life, Gulliver has no real connection. He comments, But my good Master Bates dying in two Years after, and I having few Friends, my Business began to fail; for my Conscience would not suffer me to imitate the bad Practice of too many among my Brethren (p. 2). Though he tries to connect to society by participati ng in a respectable profession, he remains alone.This alienation and isolation is a minor theme throughout his voyages; it is the first step in the systematic approach Swift takes towards dealing with the broader theme of identity. In each of the cultures Gulliver encounters, this sense of alone-ness increases. In Lilliput and Brobdingnag, for example, Gulliver is even more marginalized from society by their fear of his physical appearance he is a giant compared to the six-inch Lilliputians and an insect to the sixty-foot tall Brobdingnags.He is constantly aware of his differences from his hosts, creating a conscious sense of alienation. In the articles of his freedom, the Lilliputians point out: they concluded from the Similarity of their Bodies, that mine must contain at least 1728 of theirs, and consequently would require as much Food as was necessary to support that Number of Lilliputians (p. 22). His differences isolate him from the Lilliputian society; he physically does not fit anywhere, viewing their country as a sort of theatre (p. 9). His senses are also different, for he can see much further away than the Lilliputians, and likewise they can see much nearer than he.In Brobdingnag, he has to convince his master that he is not a lowly animal. The Brobdingnagian reaction to him highlights their repulsion of his differences: The Farmer by this time was convinced I must be a rational Creature Then he called his Wife, and shewed me to her, but she screamed and ran back as Women in England do at the Sight of a Toad or a Spider (p. 58). Gulliver is different from the native inhabitants of Lilliput and Brobdingnag and is alienated as such.In his voyages to Laputa and Houyhnhnm, Gullivers societal isolation drastically increases, apexing with the Houyhnhnms. In both countries he is openly condescended for both his physical and his intellectual limitations, and because of this condescension is isolated from the rest of the society. When he refused th e flapper to converse, it gave his Majesty and the whole court a very mean Opinion of my Understanding (p.114). The king wants to learn nothing of Englands history, but rather asks Gulliver to focus on European mathematics and received the Account with great Contempt and Indifference (p. 120). In Laputa, Gulliver and his native society are defects.The isolation in Houyhnhnm is the most acute, however. Gulliver cannot relate to them because they are not human they are a superior species of horse. Nor can he relate to the odious and foul Yahoos who are human in an unrecognizable form. Spatially this isolation is manifested in the placement of his billeting: the Master Horse ordered a Place for me to lodge in; it was but Six Yards from the House, and separated from the Stable of the Yahoos (p. 175). Although Gulliver takes up acquaintance with the Houyhnhnms it is always understood that he is associated with the Yahoos, for whom Gulliver has affected a deep hatred. They teach hi m the language, yet looked upon it as a Prodigy, that a brute Animal should discover such Marks of a rational Creature (p. 175). Gullivers alienation here in the country of horses is vastly complete.Where then does this alienation and isolation leave Gulliver? He is in an identity-void, searching for any form of acceptance. Swift presents this as early as Gullivers life in England. He lists his self-worth by his education and professional training, name-dropping as often as possible to give himself affluence: He sent me to Emanuel-College in Cambridge I was bound apprentice to Mr. James Bates, an eminent surgeon in London Leyden: there I studied Physick two years and seven months (p. 1-2). Through this series of affluent names, Gulliver is seeking an identity through the acceptance of his audience.Lilliput is much different than England, however, in both its inhabitants and its culture. In this identity-void, Gulliver grasps at any straw of acceptance, no matter how debasing. He literally prostrates himself before the emperor and princes, offering complete servility; he is a mere servant, eager to please his new masters. Upon later duty against the Lilliputians sworn enemy, the Blefuscu, he exults that This great Prince received at my Landing with all possible Encomiums, and created me a Nardac upon the Spot, which is the highest Title of Honour among them (p. 29). He has achieved a place in the Lilliputian society and is elated. In his almost desperate attempt to gain favor with the emperor and princes, he proclaims:I desired the Secretary to present my humble Duty to the Emperor an to let him know, that I thought it would not become me, who was a Foreigner, to interfere with Parties; but I was ready, with the Hazard of my Life, to defend his Person and State against all Invaders. (p. 26)He has learned the language earnestly to build a bridge over his alienation (p. 12). He has allowed himself to be held captive, knowing full well that due to his sheer strength, he could squash whoever he chose (p. 9). But only on the Lilliputians terms does Gulliver receive acceptance, and as witnessed in the rapid recall of his title and honor, it is short-lived at best (p. 41).As Gullivers journeys progress, the occurrences of even temporary social identity and occasions of acceptance decrease rapidly, an inverse to the increase of his alienation. From Brobdingnag on, Gulliver never fully assimilates to their societies, although he does not stop trying to find his adopted identity. In Brobdingnag, he humors the Queen, entertaining her as a doll-like plaything, winning her favor. In an attempt to build his own identity as the Queens favorite, he deliberately undermines the Queens dwarf, sending him to live with another household as a punishment (p. 77), proving that there is nothing that Gulliver would not do to belong and form his own identity within the structures of social acceptance.In Laputa and Houyhnhnm, Gulliver experiences so mething altogether different than what he has encountered before. Laputa is a floating island of philosophy and higher thought, a would-be utopia if it were not for excess and the lack of reason. Gulliver makes an attempt to understand the Laputans by learning their language, visiting various places such as their court, universities and land below, but cannot reconcile himself with what he finds; it is too abstract and tedious. He grows increasingly weary of Those people (p. 127) and feels neglected (p.127) as the Laputans are lost in their reveries. For the first time in all his travels, he longs for England (p.150). In place of Gullivers drive for acceptance, the reader is introduced to Lord Munodi. He is an isolated character, and much like Gulliver he is seeking his identity in a society that does not accept him. In Munodis case, it is because he is too rational and looked upon with Tenderness, as a well-meaning Man, but of a low contemptible Understanding (p. 129).Having failed to achieve an enduring identity in the aforementioned societies, it is not without desperation that Gulliver next throws himself so fully in the pursuit of acceptance from the Houyhnhnms. Here it is either be a Houyhnhnms or a Yahoo. To physically set himself apart from the Yahoo-humans and be acceptable to the Houyhnhnms, he hides the appearance of his person with his clothes:I had hitherto concealed the Secret of my Dress, in order to distinguish myself as much as possible, from that cursed Race of Yahoos; but now I found it in vain to do so any longer. (p. 177)He swears his master to secrecy, so that the rest of the Houyhnhnms will not think less of him. He goes out of his way to impress them with his acquisition of language and would be very content to live the rest of his time with the reasonable creatures (p. 202-204). He is successful at creating a life among these whom he has grown to admire and love, and even eventually moves into his Masters house (209). But o ther Houyhnhnms do not approve of a Yahoo staying in their own homes, and Gulliver is banished from Houyhnhnm (p. 212). His alienation had overcome his acceptance in a dramatic swoon.The question is again posed: where does this leave Gulliver? From his isolation to desperate attempts for acceptance comes a forlorn loss of basic human identity. In England, Gulliver does not have any emotional attachment to his family as befitting a man of the bourgeois class. He is a cold automaton concerned more with financial and social status than with leaving his wife, five months pregnant, and the children he barely knows so he can travel again (p. 165); he shows more emotion towards the Houyhnhnms, fainting when told he had to leave (p. 212) than he does with his family. In his drive to succeed in English society, he has ceased being an emotional creature of humanity.In Lilliput, Gullivers loss of a human identity is much more literal when he allows himself to be chained up as a prisoner. The image of him with chains around him, and his observation that being fixed within four Inches of the Gate, allowed me to creep in, and lie at my full Length in the Temple (p. 9) brings to mind a dog in the doghouse. He allows the Lilliputians to strip him of his English identity by renaming him Man Mountain, and he further distances himself from England when he learns their language in an attempt to bridge his alienation. In his desperation for acceptance, he grasps at any chance, even allowing himself to become a tool of the state, taking on the Lilliputian sworn enemy Blefuscu (p. 29).In Brobdingnag, Gulliver likewise debases himself so far as to cease being a human being, but rather a play thing for their amusement, allowing himself to be dressed and cared for like a doll by his nurse, Glumdalclitch (p. 63). He is again stripped of his English identity by being dressed in Brobdingnagian styled attire and renamed Gildrig (p. 64). He grows so submersed in Brobdingnag cultur e that he has a very difficult time re-assimilating to his native culture in England, treating his family as though they were Lilliputians and he was a Brobdingnag (p. 106-107).The example of Laputa is set apart because unlike Gulliver, Munodi refuses to prostrate himself in order to fit it. He sees no reason to abandon logic, though it is highly looked upon as being too practical. He instead chooses his alienation rather than acceptance and lives a lonely life of isolation (p. 130). Due to this, Munodi becomes one of the most realistic creatures in the entire novel.In Houyhnhnm the reader sees the most drastic change in Gullivers identity as a human as he becomes a misanthrope. It is here that he loses all sense of his former humanity. He is appalled by the idea of going to live among the Yahoos, and he has so fully adopted the Houyhnhnm society that he cannot help but see his family as ugly, beastlike creatures (p. 220). In the end, he is forced to return to the world from wh ich he came, but quite changed. Having seen the things he has, the world of Yahoos is contemptible and disgusting to him. When rescued by Don Pedro De Mendez, Gullivers complete submersion in Houyhnhnm culture is at once apparent in his accent, his clothing and his deep antipathy for the sailors who just rescued him. Once home, he is barely able to tolerate the presence of his family. He retreats into a kind of madness, spending his days talking to the horses in his stable as if to recreate Houyhnhnm.It is when he is alienated from social acceptance that his identity as we, the audience, accept it starts diluting and becomes something of a blank canvas to be painted according to the fashion of his adopted culture. Gulliver doesnt just try to gain a new identity, one is forced upon him; he is a monster: a repulsive Yahoo in Houyhnhnm, a disfigured inferior in Laputa, a doll named Gildrig in Brobdingnag, and of course a Man Mountain tool in Lilliput. In his displacement, he latc hes on to any acceptance he can get, even if it means losing his basic identity as a human. We see this figuratively as he loses his name, physically as he loses his apparel and linguistically as he acquires new languages as he tries to find a place among his new adopted cultures, even if losing his identity as a human makes him become a monster.This brings about the question, if society does indeed de- and re-construct the individual, how then are deviants explained? One possible resolution by Swift is the introduction of the character Lord Munodi. He is a minor character, but he plays the important role of showing the possibility of individual dissent within a brainwashed community such as Laputa. While the Lagados try to extract sunbeams from cucumbers and or to discover anarchy in feces, Munodi is a breath of the fresh air of logical intelligence (p. 132). Having tried unsuccessfully to convince his fellows of their misguided public policies, he has given up and is content to manage his own estates in his own way (p. 130).Perhaps, then, we are to determine our own conclusions as to our individual identity and rise above the social constructs that narrowly define our values and our lives. The individual is a product of societal constructs; identity is diluted until it is no longer recognized as part of human kind. Each society that Gulliver visits is a degree of conformity; Gulliver simply went over the top in assimilating to the Houyhnhnms. The moral to this fantastical fairy tale? Swift is illustrating the danger of our drive for acceptance; if we are too eager to blend in, we run the risk of losing ourselves completely.