Bücher von Antje Schöne

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Dresden Technical University (Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik), course: American Comedies, language: English, abstract: ¿I am a creature controlled by some cruel fate that had twisted and warped my personality so that at the first sign of personal involvement, I became transformed from human being into the most feared and dangerous beast on earth, the observer-writer¿, says Neil Simon, calling himself ¿a monster who finds himself totally involved in situations, and then suddenly and without warning steps back to watch the proceeding¿. Some call Simon ¿Broadway¿s most successful playwright¿ , others ¿in commercial terms, the most successful dramatist in the American theatre, and probably in the history of the world¿. Fact is, he has had dozens of plays produced and ¿has been showered with more Academy and Tony nominations than any other writer¿. Born on July 4, 1927, Marvin Neil Simon grew up in Manhattan and shortly attended New York University and the University of Denver. His most significant job came in the early 1950s when he started writing for television comedy series. By the 1960s, Simon had begun to concentrate on writing plays for Broadway. His first hit was ¿Come Blow Your Horn¿ in 1961. Throughout his career, Simon ¿has drawn extensively on his own life and experience for materials for his plays¿. The author¿s ¿milieu is middle-aged, middle class New York [, neighborhoods he knows well from when he was a child], and he builds much of his humor on the familiarity of that world to his audience¿. But Simon is probably best known for his characters Oscar Madison and Felix Ungar from his 1965 playwright ¿The Odd Couple¿. ¿Neil Simon's fabulously funny creation The Odd Couple started out in 1965 as a Broadway play, became a movie in 1968 and then was adapted for TV by ABC in 1970, remaining on screen for five years and more than a hundred episodes¿ , as well as used for other derivative works and spin-offs. In his plays, above all in this play, Neil Simon delivers insight in the life of egocentric people and their struggle in society, ¿his characters are more or less well-meaning blunderers on dead-end roads¿ . It does not matter ¿ob es um Ehe, Freundschaft oder Eltern-Kind-Beziehungen geht, immer steht das Aufeinanderprallen gegensätzlicher Lebenseinstellungen zweier Menschen im Ringen um eine mögliche Form des Zusammenlebens im Mittelpunkt¿

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,3, Dresden Technical University (Institut für Anglistik/ Amerikanistik), course: Basic Readings in North American Cultural Studies, language: English, abstract: Introduction Walter Elias Disney is the ¿most influential American of the twentieth century¿ and has become a myth. He created an empire on a cartoon mouse and everything in this empire carries his signature. For his achievements one could call him the founder of postmodern America, a founder of an industry of fantasy that enriched the western culture. That it why the first part of my essay deals with him and his company. The main part is about one of his greatest realizations ¿ Disneyland. Today, this amusement park is one of the biggest tourist attractions in the whole world. Walt Disney brought to this theme park ¿all the skills and showmanship he had learned in three decades as a film maker¿. He wanted to bring his Disney vision into material and physical existence, as well as providing a strong dose of American ideology. Disneyland represents the American dream ¿ a world of magic and illusion, prosperity and happiness. It is a showcase for postmodernism and the embodiment of capitalism. But what makes Disneyland so magical. Why are so many people visiting this amusement park? After dealing shortly with the history and architecture of the park I will try to explain the success, the magic and the contradictions of Disneyland. Walter Elias Disney was born in 1901 in Chicago, Illinois. In 1906, his family moved to a farm in Missouri and in 1910 they moved to Kansas City. Soon it became visible that Walt Disney was interested in movies, especially of Charlie Chaplin, and drawing. After he left school at the age of 16, he became a volunteer ambulance driver in World War I where he served as a member of the American Red Cross Ambulance Force in France until 1919. After this experience he worked as an advertising cartoonist and started working on methods to perfect the combinations of animation and life action. Walt Disney started some business but with not much success. In 1923 he and his brother Roy Disney launched the Disney Brothers Studio with saved and lent money: ¿They bought a used camera, rented a tiny studio in the back of a real-estate office, moved into a one-room apartment together, hired a couple of assistants, and according to Walt began the process of making ¿the name Disney famous around the world¿¿.