Portfolio # 8: Literary essay "Ostracism and Segregation: Belonging to a minority group"
Ostracism and Segregation:
Belonging to a minority group
The focus of this essay will be the distressful situation that people in minority groups have to contend with in everyday life, as evidence by the lyrics of three popular songs by Sting, Sir Elton John and U2. These songs reflect upon the circumstances of a particular faction of people in contrast with the rest of their societies. Immigrants, homosexuals, and religious are members of diverse minority groups that are suffer from distress by being ostracised and segregated from the rest of the community.
See for example the lyrics of An Englishman in New York by Sting “Oh, I'm an alien, I'm a legal alien”. Both the song’s title and its chorus relate to the experience of an immigrant who is shunned by other people. The lyrics state that the titular character is an alien. The meaning of this word is two-fold. On the one hand, it means “outsider”, which is the experience of an immigrant on a foreign land. On the other hand, it means “strange” or “unusual”, as a literal alien from outer space.
Ostracism is also repeatedly cast upon homosexuals and people with other non standard sexual orientations. This is the case, for example, of the titular character of the song All the Girls Love Alice by Elton John. Here, the lyrics suggest that Alice is a lesbian girl, and that “All the young girls love Alice; Tender young Alice, they say” she is. In this case, while Alice is not ostracised by those who love her, she ended murdered in the street, as the lyrics say “And it was only last Tuesday they found you in the subway dead”.
Where the streets have no name is a song about Northern Ireland. Bono, U2’s lead singer, said about the song that “in Belfast, by what street someone lives on you can tell not only their religion but tell how much money they're making - literally by which side of the road they live on, because the further up the hill the more expensive the houses become” (1). What this means is that people in Belfast suffer from an extreme form of division, and the ostracism and segregation of minority groups (such as Catholics) is evident.
The lyrics of the three songs above demonstrate the distress that people belonging to minority groups suffer. Someone in a minority group can be a homosexual, or an immigrant, or may have religious beliefs contrary to the rest of the community. This turns them into something different, something to be shunned and feared. This is the source of that segregation and ostracism.
Footnotes:
1) See at http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=908
Song lyrics:
- An Englishman in New York (by Sting): https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sting/englishmaninnewyork.html
- All the Girls Love Alice (by Elton John): https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/eltonjohn/allthegirlslovealice.html
- Where the Streets Have No Name (by U2): https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/u2band/wherethestreetshavenoname.html
Have a look at the following mistakes:
ResponderEliminar* Line 2: as evidenceD IN ...
* Line 3: The term "faction" implies that such group is organised. However, the characters in the lyrics are depicted as feeling lonely.
* Line 4: "religious" is an adjective, not a noun as the rest of the enumerated items. Maybe you should include the word people afterwards.
* Same line: the word "are" should be deleted.
* Second paragraph: the song's title - No apostrophe S, as the song is not a living creature.
* Have you read the given information on the song Englishman in New York? It has nothing to do with being an immigrant, it is a metaphor for being a homosexual.
If you take my humble piece of advice, I think your "sin" is being too pompous with language, using extravagant terms but still making silly basic mistakes. When you write, always think of your audience. If you employ many vocabulary items they are not acquainted with, instead of building a bridge, you pull it down and broaden the distance between writer and addressee.