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Love Story: The banal title is most suitable

Strokes of fate are real life

Love Story written by Erich Segal in 1970 is a tragic story about a wealthy, young man called Oliver and Jennifer, a woman of lower status. They are entangled in a love story which does not only deal with the complicated relationship between those two, but also with the deranged relation between the rebellious Oliver, a Harvard student, who wants to marry a woman whose father is an Italian pastry chef in Cranston, R.I., and his own father, who wants from his son a right and proper behaviour concerning his family heritage. In fact, he wants him to be like he is and to head for the same career like him. Oliver’s relationship to Jenny causes lots of problems which continue through the whole story. But already the first sentence "What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?" shows the end of the story. Besides you can realize that this is not a typical Hollywood story with a happy end, because the beloved person dies. So the nice love story is influenced by destiny and this makes Love Story so successful.

Another very important point is the realistic handling of the story. I think because of the perfect ending of this novel, it differs from the thousands of cute fairy tales, in which everybody loves each other and evil is conquered, like in Cinderella. In Love Story destiny does not only mean everything is good, but also both, i. e. evil and good luck together.
The way how Oliver and Jenny met, how they fell in love, how they coped with the social differences between them, how they lived together, how they handled Jenny’s fatal sickness is quite comprehensible for the reader. The audience can sympathize with the feelings which Oliver and Jenny have, because they are human and realistic. They can imagine the story as if it is caught from normal life. How come? What makes the story so realistic? The simple sentence structure and the colloquial language play a big role to make it better understandable and therefore more realistic. Strokes of fate destroy the happiness of two people, but they bring other people together - there is Jenny’s death and there is the reconciliation between Oliver and his father. And that is what makes Love Story successful and, of course, other stories such as Romeo & Juliet.

Love Story or Death Story?

Why did Erich Segal name his novel Love Story, when one of the lovers dies at the end? Does it not have to be named Death Story?
I think no, because the whole story, from the beginning to the end, is full of love. Jenny’s death does not mean that Oliver’s feelings to her disappear, they remain in existence. And the reconciliation with his father also shows the beginning of a new loving father-son relationship, which you can already see in the hospital episode, where Oliver weeps in the arms of his father. So it goes on with another kind of love. If you had a novel called Death Story you would expect a detective novel, a story of crime and murder, and not a tragic story of two people loving each other. So Love Story is a banal title but suitable.

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John Boynton Priestley, "An Inspector Calls" - How can we keep peace ?

The wealthy will always prefer Capitalism and the poor Socialism

In 1947 John Boynton Priestley wrote his socially critical drama "An Inspector Calls", which deals with the big gap between the wealthy and poor in the society of 1912. The upper-middle class is personified by the Birlings, the lower class by Eva Smith / Daisy Renton, who doesn’t really take part in the play. Her sad life and her suicide are reported by inspector Goole, who is the central figure in this detective play, a representative of the poor. With the help of Inspector Goole Priestley conveys to the audience his social message. During the disclosure of the stories of the Birlings, in which everyone is entangled, you can see their different reactions, which are quite interesting, because only the younger generation (Sheila, Eric, Gerald) accept their guilt, Mr and Mrs Birling refuse responsibility. People like Eva and John Smith are only cheap labourers of inferior quality to them because they themselves have the capacity to set the standard of morals and rights. In their opinion people of lower status deserve no rights at all. If you take Mrs Birling´s charity, you can see that she feels morally superior because she decides between "deserving" and "undeserving cases". So the false double standards are a further point of criticism of the play.

J.B.Priestley (1894 - 1984)

Priestley appeals to the conscience of the humans to dismiss the Hybris, egoism, greed and especially the immoral behaviour. So his hopes are that the play "An Inspector Calls" will open the people’s eyes and give society the chance to realize their faults and learn from them, because they have not done it yet. Like the inspector says: "We are members of one body. We are responsible for each other." Everybody must respect and pay attention to each other, otherwise "the body" does not work and the poor begin to rebel and the parties of "Conservatives" and "Labour Party" will start a new war. Therefore people must learn to keep peace by helping each other and must learn from those two World Wars. Priestley wrote his drama after the Second World War, around thirty years after the first war, in order to show mankind that the humans themselves must create a society, in which all social classes cooperate to achieve the well-being of the whole. Furthermore there should not be any social classes, so that everybody is as valuable as another and no one is superior to the other. But how should this social order look like?
I think, Priestley does not want Communism, rather Liberal Socialism, in which the people should have the freedom of thinking and acting, but only if everybody shows consideration for the other and takes care of one another, so that nobody will be discriminated by another person. Capitalism is the opposite, in which everyone looks after himself and which is the leading social system in the western society. So in Priestley’s opinion nothing has changed yet and, I guess, nothing will be changed in future either because the wealthy will always prefer Capitalism and the poor Socialism. The only thing that this play can reach is the minds of the audience, especially of the young, to change their attitude of life by coming out of their carefree world and show interest in the others. So his aim is to remind us that there are not only material interests and power but also humane values.

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Multiculture - a threat to White Anglo-Saxon Protestants ?

WASPs want to keep their traditions

Whether in the past or at present there is still the question of how to describe America with its influx of immigrants. The two best known theories are the "melting pot" theory and the "salad bowl" theory. But which of them is the better description for the multiculturalism of America?
If you look at the American history since the 17th and 18th century you only see the colonists, who settled in America because of economic freedom and because of the possibilities offered. Settlers from other countries like Germany, Sweden, Norway and France also came to America, but they had the same religious and cultural background as the colonists, so their presence did not cause problems. They all together founded the White Anglo Saxon Protestant culture (WASP-culture), which is still very important in America.
All these people were northwestern European Protestants and had the same customs. So you can consider that all of them were a part in a melting pot. Nevertheless it is not a proper comparison because in a melting pot all humans are melted into one nationality / race by giving up their individual personality. The WASPs which are described above can be seen as the result of this assimilation process.
Since the 19th century more non-Europeans began to immigrate to the US. There were the Asians, Hispanics and people from southern and eastern Europe, who were not as well educated as the northwestern Europeans. And in order to get a higher quality of life all these immigrants left their home country because of persecution, unemployment, famines etc. to start a new and free life in the "land of opportunities". These people were very different concerning their religion, culture and customs from the earlier colonists. So it is a very hard and difficult way to assimilate the new kind of settlers to the special group of WASPs because they want to keep their traditions. No matter if they are temporary workers, labourers, permanent settlers or refugees. And becoming a member of the WASP-culture means giving up their own identities, changing into a Protestant in a "white society". Compared to other nations you see the highest rate of muliculturalism in the US than anywhere else. So it is impossible to blend all of the ethnic groups in a melting pot.
So the scientists developed a different theory: the "salad bowl" theory. This means that all immigrants are mixed like ingredients to complete a whole palatable salad consisting of all humans, who remain individuals concerning their characteristics and origin. So in America the diversity of the population, the multicultural society, is retained and represses more and more the traditional white American of the WASP-culture.
In my opinion the "melting pot" approach clearly describes the beginning of America and the "salad bowl" the situation from the Declaration of Independence until now (instead of "salad bowl" you also can say "pizza concept" or "mosaic").
Which type is better for America is another matter, because both approaches have their advantages and disadvantages.

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Education is for everyone

Promoting only a small elite produces a gap between rich and poor

If you talk about education, you have to differentiate between education and upbringing. A good school system must combine these two aspects, because in society you need a formal graduation, which means a certificate of a good general education proving you have studied various subjects like languages, sciences, arts etc. On the other hand, each individual who calls himself well-educated must show his independence not only in general but also in professional life. Only this person who has reached these aims is a well-bred character. Therefore the idea of education is the realisation of oneself and the existence of a political and social consciousness. And each person has the right to get an education and an upbringing. I think these most important tasks have to be managed by society, by school and by family, so that education is not only for the benefit of rich classes but also for the people of all walks of life.
Money should not play the most important role, but the educational standards should correspond to the child’s talent and intelligence.
I believe it is the aim of each person to get a well-paid job. And reaching this goal means passing through long periods of education to show that you have social and academic skills and that you have mastered basic reading, writing and mathematics, which, I think, each school system has in common despite of their cultural and economic differences. The big firms need people with special skills that are built on educational qualities, which will be formed first in school and later in colleges and universities. And because of these high standards, which the business world desires, nearly all businessmen are college graduates.

However, there is one big problem if you take for example Great Britain. In Britain the best colleges are private ones, which are very expensive because there are such high costs you have to pay that only the wealthy people can get a very excellent graduation, which is highly regarded in nearly every country of the world. But promoting only a small elite produces a deepening of the gap between the rich and the poor. So the working class never gets the chance of establishing in the world although they have the potential for it. Setting up in business is consequently only an opportunity for the wealthy children, but that is not the right way because all children are our future.
	Eton College, one of the most exclusive boarding schools for boys in Great Britain

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Educating Rita shows the class divisions

The more Rita proceeds the more her ideal of a dream world bursts

The play "Educating Rita" written by Willy Russell deals, like the title says, with the differences of education in the middle and working class. Simultaneously with the discussion about educational problems in society the play shows the audience a twenty-six year-old woman named Rita, who runs through a process of emancipation by rising from working class into middle class.

First I will look at the differences of education between these two classes, which are quite significant. If you view the different school types, middle classes will always prefer public and grammar schools for their children. Making this possible for the children often means paying high school fees, which is not a problem for them but by far a bigger one for the working classes, because even if they want their children to attend such a school, they can not raise money of that quantity. So they are forced to send their children to comprehensive schools. And also after leaving school only a few of the working class children go on to colleges or universities in contrast to the public and grammar school graduates. Like Rita most of them start a training and become hairdressers, lorry drivers etc., which compared to doctors or lawyers are less qualified jobs.

In further life the division between the classes disappears not in the least. On the contrary, you have the feeling that both sides do not even know how the other lives and what they do. In their leisure time middle classes visit theatres, operas, museums. So they go in for a higher cultural education. For meeting each other they organise dinner parties at home, where they talk about politics or cultural issues. Rita illustrates that the working classes do nothing of that. When she was invited by Frank to his dinner party, Rita got very nervous because she did not know how to dress herself or which wine to bring. Her family instead meet friends in pubs, where they sing or they go to football matches or something like that. A further example is the fascination by Rita visiting a theatre for the first time, because she never went to a theatre before, which is "only" for the middle classes.

Keeping this in mind we should pay attention to Rita’s process. At first she felt very uncomfortable, when she visited the course at the Open University, because she knew if she steps forward, she would leave some of her background by entering a new field of life, which she has never stepped on before. The spectator has the impression that Rita only learns the meaning of highbrow literature, but later he can recognise that Rita develops her own personality by becoming acquainted with a higher social class. The more her development proceeds the more her ideal of a dream world bursts, because she realizes that all these middle class people are as human, normal as she is and have their own problems (see Trish’s attempt of suicide or Frank´s life crisis).

Of course, knowing both classes, passing the exam, having the choice between both worlds makes her happier than she was before, because extremely new possibilities have been opened now. Besides she feels more independent and emancipated with her collected experiences, because she is not tied to anything or anyone, and if she wishes she can still keep up the connection to her family. This will always belong to her personal descent, no matter which kind of work she has, where she lives or how she spends her leisure time.

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