Thursday, March 19, 2020

Essay About 50 Shades of Grey

Essay About 50 Shades of Grey In 2012, British author E. L. James’ erotic romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey first took the Western world by storm, in North America and Europe, garnering much attention due to its explicit content. As the first installment of the Fifty Shades Trilogy, the book portrays a deepening relationship between a college student, Anastasia Steele, and a young business magnate, Christian Gray, in Seattle, Washington. It gained notability for its erotic scenes featuring elements of sexual practices involving bondage/discipline, dominance/submission and sadism/masochism (BDSM). Since then the book and the trilogy, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed, has sold millions of copies worldwide, long ago entering into best-seller status, and been translated into dozens of other languages. Not bad for a book that was originally self-published as an e-book and on a print-on-demand basis. Tides turned in 2012 when Vintage Books acquired the publishing rights. And the rest is history. Though readers couldn’t get enough of the book, critical reception of the book leaned on the negative. Critics thought the quality of the prose was generally poor; that despite the racy scenes, it wasn’t written very well. Nonetheless, just before Valentine’s Day 2015, Universal Pictures produced a film based on Fifty Shades of Grey, the first book in the Trilogy, which also received generally unfavorable reviews. It premiered at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in early February 2015. But it still went on to be an immediate box office success, making more than $400 million in the box office. It cast film stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey. A sequel to the film is planned for a 2016 release. At its core, Fifty Shades of Grey, the movie and the book (and even Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed) is all a story of transformation done out of love. Christian Grey, though successful and extremely wealthy, has a dark past – a physically abusive childhood that leaves him angry and distanced from other people and into perverted sexual practices. Anastasia then interviews him for a college paper, and over time they have an attraction that turns into a sexual relationship. At first, Christian engages in his kinky sexual games with the innocent, naà ¯ve and inexperienced Anastasia. The BDSM becomes too much for her: she begins to have feelings for him and desires for a normal relationship with romantic lovemaking. She gives him an ultimatum; she is done with the BDSM and tells Christian she will stop their relationship and leave him unless he can demonstrate a capacity to love her and show appropriate, sensitive feelings for her. It works, too. He changes for her. Throughout Fifty Shades of Grey, the book and film, Christian is also falling in love with Anastasia. The reader, or film viewer, knows this but speculates that he masks his emotional vulnerabilities with dominating, exploitative sexual practices in which he involves her repeatedly. It appears, at first, he is taking advantage of the young inexperienced girl. Using her for sex, for her body. But in the end of the first story, we learn that he transforms and embraces his more sensitive, selfless and romantic side in order to keep her. The two subsequent stories of the Trilogy focus on their relationship after they decide to date and try a serious relationship. All in all, Fifty Shades of Grey is not your classic romance story. But it may be the romance story of today’s world and society. In many regards, the story sets precedents on what can be included in and considered art and literature and film. Twenty years ago or longer, this story would have been considered risquà © and pornographic in nature. The story is a testament to the ever-changing views on sex, and is a nod to sex, even kinky sexy, becoming part of the mainstream media and world of entertainment – and not just something done behind closed doors but part of many people’s everyday life. If you are reading this article, youre most likely looking for information about the book or the movie. Or the case may be you need an essay written about the 50 Shades of Grey story. Whichever the case, is the right place to go to. Our writers can do professional research, report and essay writing on any topic there is, including  the one this article is dedicated to. To get academic writing assistance, simply visit our order page, place your order and work will start immediately. We guarantee outcome  will exceed your expectations.

Tuesday, March 3, 2020

The U.S. And Great Britain Special Relationship

The U.S. And Great Britain Special Relationship The rock-solid relationship between the United States and Great Britain that President Barack Obama described during his March 2012 meetings with British Prime Minister David Cameron was, in part, forged in the fires of World Wars I and II. Despite fervent wishes to remain neutral in both conflicts, the U.S. allied with Great Britain both times. World War I World War I erupted in August 1914, the result of long-standing European imperial grievances and arms races. The United States sought neutrality in the war, having just experienced its own brush with imperialism that included the Spanish-American War, 1898, (of which Great Britain approved), and the disastrous Filipino Insurrection that soured Americans on further foreign entanglements. Nevertheless, the United States expected neutral trade rights; that is, it wanted to trade with belligerents on both sides of the war, including Great Britain and Germany. Both of those countries opposed the American policy, but while Great Britain would stop and board U.S. ships suspected of carrying goods to Germany, German submarines took the more dire action of sinking American merchant ships. After 128 Americans died when a German U-Boat sank the British luxury liner Lusitania (surreptitiously hauling weapons in its hold), U.S. President Woodrow Wilson and his Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan successfully got Germany to agree to a policy of restricted submarine warfare. Incredibly, that meant a sub had to signal a targeted ship that it was about to torpedo it so that personnel could debark the vessel. In early 1917, however, Germany renounced restricted sub warfare and returned to unrestricted sub warfare. By now, American merchants were showing an unabashed bias toward Great Britain, and the British rightly feared renewed German sub attacks would cripple their trans-Atlantic supply lines. Great Britain actively courted the United States- with its manpower and industrial might- to enter the war as an ally. When British intelligence intercepted a telegram from Germanys Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to Mexico encouraging Mexico to ally with Germany and create a diversionary war on Americas southwestern border, they quickly notified Americans. The Zimmerman Telegram was genuine, although at first glance it seems like something British propagandists might fabricate to get the U.S. in the war. The telegram, combined with Germanys unrestricted sub warfare, was the tipping point for the United States. It declared war on Germany in April 1917. The U.S. enacted a Selective Service Act, and by Spring 1918 had enough soldiers in France to help England and France turn back a massive German offensive. In Fall 1918, under the command of General John J. Blackjack Pershing, American troops flanked the German lines while British and French troops held the German front in place. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive forced Germany to surrender. Treaty of Versailles Compared to France, Great Britain and the United States took moderate stances at the post-war treaty talks in Versailles, France. France, having survived two German invasions in the last 50 years, wanted severe punishments for Germany, including the signing of a war guilt clause and the payment of onerous reparations. The U.S. and Britain were not so adamant about the reparations, and the U.S. loaned money to Germany in the 1920s to help with its debt. However, the U.S. and Great Britain did not agree on everything. President Wilson forwarded his optimistic Fourteen Points as a blueprint for post-war Europe. The plan included an end to imperialism and secret treaties; national self-determination for all countries; and a global organization- the League of Nations- to mediate disputes. Great Britain could not accept Wilsons anti-imperialist aims, but it did accept the League, which Americans- fearing more international involvement- did not. Washington Naval Conference In 1921 and 1922, the U.S. and Great Britain sponsored the first of several naval conferences designed to give them dominance in total tonnage of battleships. The conference also sought to limit a Japanese naval buildup. The conference resulted in a ratio of 5:5:3:1.75:1.75. For every five tons the U.S. and British had in battleship displacement, Japan could have only three tons, and France and Italy could each have 1.75 tons. The agreement fell apart in the 1930s when militaristic Japan and fascist Italy disregarded it, even though Great Britain tried to extend the pact. World War II When England and France declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, the United States again tried to remain neutral. When Germany defeated France, then attacked England in the summer of 1940, the resulting Battle of Britain shook the United States out of its isolationism. The United States began a military draft and started building new military equipment. It also began arming merchant ships to carry goods through the hostile North Atlantic to England (a practice it had abandoned with the policy of Cash and Carry in 1937); traded World War I-era naval destroyers to England in exchange for naval bases, and began the Lend-Lease program. Through Lend-Lease the United States became what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the arsenal of democracy, making and supplying materiel of war to Great Britain and others fighting Axis powers. During World War II, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill held several personal conferences. They met first off the coast of Newfoundland aboard a navy destroyer in August 1941. There they issued the Atlantic Charter, an agreement in which they outlined the goals of the war. Of course, the U.S. was not officially in the war, but tacitly FDR pledged to do all he could for England short of formal war. When the U.S. officially joined the war after Japan attacked its Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Churchill went to Washington where he spent the holiday season. He talked strategy with FDR in the Arcadia Conference, and he addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress- a rare event for a foreign diplomat. During the war, FDR and Churchill met at the Casablanca Conference in North Africa in early 1943 where they announced the Allied policy of unconditional surrender of Axis forces. In 1944 they met at Tehran, Iran, with Josef Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union. There they discussed war strategy and the opening of a second military front in France. In January 1945, with the war winding down, they met at Yalta on the Black Sea where, again with Stalin, they talked about post-war policies and the creation of the United Nations. During the war, the U.S. and Great Britain cooperated in the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France and Germany, and several islands and naval campaigns in the Pacific. At the wars end, as per an agreement at Yalta, the United States and Britain split the occupation of Germany with France and the Soviet Union. Throughout the war, Great Britain acknowledged that the United States had surpassed it as the worlds top power by accepting a command hierarchy that put Americans in supreme command positions in all major theaters of the war.