Camille A. Paglia

Camille A. Paglia explores what she calls the "Androgyny of Manners." With this quote she states the main point, or focus of her entire essay, "The salon is an abstract circle in which male and female, like mathematical ciphers, are equal and interchangeable…" She hints that Christianity did not destroy paganism but rather drove it into the underground of Western culture. It later emerged in the Renaissance art , Romantism period of Europe, and modern Hollywood culture. According to Paglia, the major patterns of consistency in western culture usually find their origin in paganism, which, continues to flourish in art, eroticism, astrology, and modern culture. She discusses the concept of androgyny of Oscar Wilde and the theme that’s present throughout The Importance of Being Earnest; the men have female like qualities and the women have male like qualities.

Thesis Statement- The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried centers around the relationships the men make; their connections to the world they left behind, and the connections they formed in Vietnam.

How to Tell a True Candy Story

It happened, to me, nearly twenty years ago, and I still recall that candy bar with those giant peanuts and the soft munching noise behind me at the airport. Up on the second floor there were tiny, happy children, but no adults at all, and I remember the masses spreading out over the balcony where Mother Theresa and Bart Simpson were playing catch with a Snicker's bar. Brad Pitt sat snapping his fingers. Ashley Olsen and Operah and George Washington were dozing, or half dozing, and all around us were those chaotic children.
Except for the laughter things were quiet.
At, one point I recall , Brad Pitt turned and looked at me , not quite nodding, as if to alert me about something, as if he already knew, then after awhile he snapped his fingers and walked away.
It's hard to tell you what happened next.
They were just eating. There was a noise, I suppose, which must've been the candy, so I glanced behind me and watched Theresa step from the balcony into bright sunlight. Her face was suddenly clear and shinning. A beautiful lady, really. Sharp brown eyes, small and hunched, and when she ate it was almost dazzling, the way the sunlight came around her and lifted her up and munching her chocolate by a tree full of moss and vines and white blossoms.

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