Germaine Greer Quotes

Germaine Greer, Australian feminist later living in London, published The Female Eunuch in 1970, with its feisty tone assuring her place in the public eye as an in your face feminist. Her later books, including Sex and Destiny: the Politics of Human Fertility and The Change: Women, Ageing, and Menopause, drew fire from feminists and others. Less well known is her career as a literature scholar and professor, where her unique perspective comes through, as in her 2000 essay, Female Impersonator, about male poets speaking as female voices, or her book, Slip-shod Sibyls: Recognition, Rejection, and the Woman Poet, where she controversially suggests that a reason many pre-modern women poets are absent from standard curricula is that they were not that skilled, focused on the morbid exercise of wallowing in emotion. Selected Germaine Greer Quotations †¢ Womens liberation, if it abolishes the patriarchal family, will abolish a necessary substructure of the authoritarian state, and once that withers away Marx will have come true willy-nilly, so lets get on with it. †¢ I think that testosterone is a rare poison. †¢ The real theater of the sex war is the domestic hearth. †¢ The surest guide to the correctness of the path that women take is joy in the struggle. †¢ Revolution is the festival of the oppressed. †¢ I didnt fight to get women out from behind vacuum cleaners to get them onto the board of Hoover. †¢ The house wife is an unpaid employee in her husbands house in return for the security of being a permanent employee. †¢ Man made one grave mistake: in answer to vaguely reformist and humanitarian agitation he admitted women to politics and the professions. The conservatives who saw this as the undermining of our civilization and the end of the state and marriage were right after all; it is time for the demolition to begin. †¢ Yet if a woman never lets herself go, how will she ever know how far she might have got? If she never takes off her high-heeled shoes, how will she ever know how far she could walk or how fast she could run? †¢ One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night. †¢ After centuries of conditioning of the female into the condition of perpetual girlishness called femininity, we cannot remember what femaleness is. Though feminists have been arguing for years that there is a self-defining female energy, and a female libido that is not expressed merely in response to demands by the male, and a female way of being and of experiencing the world, we are still not close to understanding what it might be. Yet every mother who has held a girl child in her arms has known that she was different from a boy child and that she would approach the reality around her in a different way. She is a female and she will die female, and though many centuries should pass, archaeologists would identify her skeleton as the remains of a female creature. †¢ The blind conviction that we have to do something about other peoples reproductive behavior, and that we may have to do it whether they like it or not, derives from the assumption that the world belongs to us, who have so expertly depleted its resources, rather than to them, who have not. †¢ The compelled mother loves her child as the caged bird sings. The song does not justify the cage nor the love the enforcement. †¢ The management of fertility is one of the most important functions of adulthood. †¢ Perhaps women have always been in closer contact with reality than men: it would seem to be the just recompense for being deprived of idealism. †¢ All that remains to the mother in modern consumer society is the role of scapegoat; psychoanalysis uses huge amounts of money and time to persuade analysis and to foist their problems on to the absent mother, who has no opportunity to utter a word in her own defense. Hostility to the mother in our societies is an index of mental health. †¢ Mother is the dead heart of the family, spending fathers earnings on consumer goods to enhance the environment in which he eats, sleeps, and watches the television. †¢ There has come into existence, chiefly in America, a breed of men who claim to be feminists. They imagine that they have understood what women want and that they are capable of giving it to them. They help with the dishes at home and make their own coffee in the office, basking the while in the refulgent consciousness of virtue. Such men are apt to think of the true male feminists as utterly chauvinistic. †¢ The sight of women talking together has always made men uneasy; nowadays it means rank subversion. †¢ Women fail to understand how much men hate them. †¢ All men hate some women some of the time and some men hate all women all of the time. †¢ The tragedy of machismo is that a man is never quite man enough. †¢ For a male child to become a man, he has to reject his mother. Its an essential part of masculinisation. †¢ Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. It has no mother. †¢ All societies on the verge of death are masculine. A society can survive with only one man; no society will survive a shortage of women. †¢ The most threatened group in human societies as in animal societies is the unmated male: the unmated male is more likely to wind up in prison or in an asylum or dead than his mated counterpart. He is less likely to be promoted at work and he is considered a poor credit risk. †¢ Human beings have an inalienable right to invent themselves; when that right is pre-empted it is called brain-washing. †¢ Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it. †¢ Older women can afford to agree that femininity is a charade, a matter of colored hair, ecru lace, and whalebones, the kind of slap and tat that transvestites are in love with, and no more. †¢ Women over fifty already form one of the largest groups in the population structure of the Western world. As long as they like themselves, they will not be an oppressed minority. In order to like themselves they must reject trivialization by others of who and what they are. A grown woman should not have to masquerade as a girl in order to remain in the land of the living. †¢ Youre only young once, but you can be immature forever. †¢ The older womans love is not love of herself, nor of herself mirrored in a lovers eyes, nor is it corrupted by need. It is a feeling of tenderness so still and deep and warm that it gilds every grass blade and blesses every fly. It includes the ones who have a claim on it, and a great deal else besides. I wouldnt have missed it for the world. †¢ Love, love, love—all the wretched cant of it, masking egotism, lust, masochism, fantasy under a mythology of sentimental postures, a welter of self-induced miseries and joys, blinding and masking the essential personalities in the frozen gestures of courtship, in the kissing and the dating and the desire, the compliments and the quarrels which vivify its barrenness. †¢ Oh, because falling in love turns you into an immediate bore. And its dreadful. †¢ Every time a woman makes herself laugh at her husbands often-told jokes she betrays him. The man who looks at his woman and says What would I do without you? is already destroyed. †¢ The only perfect love to be found on earth is not sexual love, which is riddled with hostility and insecurity, but the wordless commitment of families, which takes as its model mother-love. This is not to say that fathers have no place, for father-love, with its driving for self-improvement and discipline, is also essential to survival, but that uncorrected father-love, father-love as it were practiced by both parents, is a way to annihilation. †¢ Every time a man unburdens his heart to a stranger he reaffirms the love that unites humanity. †¢ If a person loves only one other person, and is indifferent to his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. †¢ English culture is basically homosexual in the sense that the men only really care about other men. †¢ The principle of the brotherhood of man is narcissistic... for the grounds for that love have always been the assumption that we ought to realize that we are the same the whole world over. †¢ Woman cannot be content with health and agility: she must make exorbitant efforts to appear something that never could exist without a diligent perversion of nature. Is it too much to ask that women be spared the daily struggle for superhuman beauty in order to offer it to the caresses of a subhumanly ugly mate? †¢ It is fatally easy for Western folk, who have discarded chastity as a value for themselves, to suppose that it can have no value for anyone else. At the same time as Californians try to re-invent celibacy, by which they seem to mean perverse restraint, the rest of us call societies which place a high value on chastity backward. †¢ Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate. †¢ Even crushed against his brother in the Tube the average Englishman pretends desperately that he is alone. †¢ I mean, in Britain its two women a week killed by their partner. Thats a shocking statistic. †¢ Most women still need a room of their own and the only way to find it may be outside their own home. †¢ There is no such thing as security. There never has been. †¢ Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release. †¢ Security is when everything is settled. When nothing can happen to you. Security is the denial of life. †¢ Developing the muscles of the soul demands no competitive spirit, no killer instinct, although it may erect pain barriers that the spiritual athlete must crash through. †¢ Women are reputed never to be disgusted. The sad fact is that they often are, but not with men; following the lead of men, they are most often disgusted with themselves. †¢ I have always been principally interested in men for sex. Ive always thought any sane woman would be a lover of women because loving men is such a mess. I have always wished Id fall in love with a woman. Damn. †¢ A full bosom is actually a millstone around a womans neck... [Breasts] are not parts of a person but lures slung around her neck, to be kneaded and twisted like magic putty, or mumbled and mouthed like lolly ices. †¢ The only causes of regret are laziness, outbursts of temper, hurting others, prejudice, jealousy, and envy. †¢ Perhaps catastrophe is the natural human environment, and even though we spend a good deal of energy trying to get away from it, we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe. †¢ Only one thing is certain: if pot is legalized, it wont be for our benefit but for the authorities. To have it legalized will also be to lose control of it. †¢ Act quickly, think slowly. †¢ Energy is the power that drives every human being. It is not lost by exertion but maintained by it, for it is a faculty of the psyche. †¢ Libraries are reservoirs of strength, grace and wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark. The pleasure they give is steady, unorgastic, reliable, deep and long-lasting. In any library in the world, I am at home, unselfconscious, still and absorbed. †¢ The essence of pleasure is spontaneity. †¢ Australia is a huge rest home, where no unwelcome news is ever wafted on to the pages of the worst newspapers in the world. †¢ Psychoanalysis is the confession without absolution. †¢ Evolution is what it is. The upper classes have always died out; its one of the most charming things about them. †¢ We in the West do not refrain from childbirth because we are concerned about the population explosion or because we feel we cannot afford children, but because we do not like children. †¢ Never advise anyone to go to war or to get married. Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present. He that has no children brings them up well. †¢ It is in our interests to let the police and their employers go on believing that the Underground is a conspiracy, because it increases their paranoia and their inability to deal with what is really happening. As long as they look for ringleaders and documents they will miss their mark, which is that proportion of every personality which belongs in the Underground. †¢ Well, thats all right. I dont mind. Theyve called me mad ever since I was born. About These Quotes Quote collection  assembled by  Jone Johnson Lewis. Each quotation page in this collection and the entire collection via Jone Johnson Lewis. This is an informal collection assembled over many years. I regret that I am not be able to provide the original source if it is not listed with the quote. Citation information:Jone Johnson Lewis. Germaine Greer Quotes. About Womens History. URL: http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/germaine_greer.htm . Date accessed: (today).

Essay on Methods for Critical Thinking - 1970 Words

Critical thinking is not a new concept just emerging from the think-tanks and universities that bring us innovative educational concepts. Critical thinking has existed since the days of Plato, Socrates, and other great ancient philosophers. Ancient Greeks believed that critical thinking â€Å"not only involved an examination of eloquent words and actions of other people,† as Plato had believed, â€Å"but also an examination of one’s own thoughts and actions† (Sriraman Adrian, 2004, p. 97). Another outspoken advocate of critical thinking was Francis Bacon, a controversial scientist from the early seventeenth century. A non-conformist, Bacon proffered that critical thinking was the â€Å"desire to seek, patience to doubt, fondness to meditate,†¦show more content†¦Critical thinking requires students to go beyond rote memorization, requires teachers to step outside the lecturer’s box, and requires schools to help teachers implement critical thi nking across the curriculum. The importance of critical thinking has not been dismissed, actually it is one of the few things that educators can agree upon when it comes to critical thinking. Suzanne Mabrouk writes, â€Å"If we do not teach and use critical thinking skills regularly with our students, then they will not develop the ability to make informed and responsible decisions in their everyday life† (n.d., p. 3). Envision a high school English class with 25 students†¦half may go to college, a quarter might not even graduate, and the other quarter might seek employment immediately after high school. One thing each of these students will certainly need after high school is critical thinking skills. Critical thinking prepares students for life in a â€Å"democracy† where as workers they will need to implement critical thinking skills and become â€Å"lifelong† learners (Maiorana, 1992, p.2). Christine Pescatore expounds on what is expected of the à ¢â‚¬Å"prepared† citizen living in a democracy by describing the critical thinking citizen as â€Å"thoughtful and responsible† (2007, p. 320). Every student that American high schools educate, regardless of race, culture, gender, socioeconomicShow MoreRelatedCritical Thinking And Scientific Method847 Words   |  4 Pagesapproach to their experiments and research. The main two that they tend to use is critical thinking and scientific method. Critical thinking is defined as the process of thinking deeply and actively asking questions and evaluating evidence (Facione, 2011). Analytically thinking is something that many people use majority of the time without ever recognizing or realizing what it is that they are doing. Scientific method on the other hand, is when all the research and evidence is empirical, or based onRead MoreCritical Thinking And Teaching Methods1648 Words   |  7 Pages but rather accept it and move on. Critical thinking and efficient teaching metho ds have been suppressed in the current U.S. educational system, and the U.S. is suffering: once one of the front runners in education, the U.S. has fallen to twenty-seventh place according to the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Ironically, the definition of critical thinking, an often-used pedagogical term, requires the process of critical thinking, criticism, and debate, as the definitionRead MoreMethods of Evaluation and Critical Thinking653 Words   |  3 PagesThe overall activity was very interesting in regards to my personal methods of evaluation and critical thinking. Each image was unique as I often applied my own personal knowledge and experience the overall interpretation of the picture. To begin, as I viewed the first picture, I scanned it for familiar objects or activities. For instance, the first image showed a boat, a woman, and a horse. Through this observation, I determined that the women were working extremely hard in a particular professionRead MoreEssay on Critical Thinking847 Words   |  4 PagesAbstract Critical thinking includes the component skills of analyzing arguments, making inferences using inductive or deductive reasoning, judging or evaluating, and making decisions or solving problems when evaluating academic content. Background knowledge is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for enabling critical thought within a given subject. Critical thinking involves both cognitive skills and dispositions. 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Many students require an explanation of why people exist. There are those who would oppose evolution, and there are those who oppose creationism. Is there a significant difference between these methods? Several states have passed regulations that allow schools to teachRead More Critical Thinking Is More than Common Sense Essays1321 Words   |  6 Pagesembraced the method of critical thought in the classroom. Kansans praise the system for the improving test scores, yet they fail to see through the blanket of such pseudo-success, and they do not realize the true mediocrity of the Kansas educatio nal curriculum. Secondary schools in Kansas should place a greater emphasis on critical thinking in the classroom. As indicated by studies from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, students fall short when it comes to critical thought and reasoningRead MoreReflective Thinking : A Component Of Critical Thinking1594 Words   |  7 PagesReflective thinking: a component of critical thinking Critical thinking is considered as a higher level of reflective thinking that involves us becoming more aware of why we perceive things, the way we feel, act and do† (Phan, 2009). As the demand increases for students to demonstrate course material through hands on application, it is imperative for students to acquire clinical competency and effective critical thinking and decision-making skills. Through the use of HPS, students are offeredRead MoreEssay on Critical Thinking1261 Words   |  6 Pages The concepts of critical thinking and creative thinking are both gaining increasing importance in the world today. Critical thinking allows people to understand difficult concepts in a manner that is clearer and more defined. They can more readily understand those concepts if they employ critical thinking. In all portions of everyday life, a person is expected to make independent judgments. Those judgments are based on experience and knowledge. Without the ability to think critically, everyRead MoreTok Essay: Critical and Creative Thinking1599 Words   |  7 Pagesof Knowledge 3 May 2012 TOK Essay Response: Critical and Creative Thinking Since the dawn of humanity, man has sought to gain further insight on life through attaining knowledge. Knowledge can be defined as any information gained through personal experience. The means of obtaining knowledge include four main branches: reason, perception, language, and emotion. Despite the means, all knowledge is formulated through the process of thinking. Thinking refers to the use of the mind to gain understanding

My Planet Free Essays

â€Å"A stich in time saves nine. † Prevention is always better than cure, if we know that something with the passage of time might become dangerous then it better to take a precautionary step to combat the danger. So how many times you heard your parents and grandparents say this to you- take precaution dear and don’t give your problems a chance to arrive. We will write a custom essay sample on My Planet or any similar topic only for you Order Now So better work now and take precaution instead of fixing the damage later. This phase is applicable in many fields of life: If you are student then you should study every day, but generally all the confusion arises when you study only during exam. When you ignore your study in the early stages then you end up working hard during your examinations and risk your success. There is no need to gamble with your success if you do your studies appropriately on time. You should immediately go to a doctor and start your treatment, if there are certain visible symptoms of a disease, before getting diagnosed with that disease. There have been many cancer cases where the patient did not take his health seriously and later on with further deterioration of his health, he comes to know that he is suffering from cancer and is at the second or third stage. Had he been to the doctor earlier and diagnosed with his disease then he could have been easily cured in the first stage. Even in the case of other diseases early detection helps in taking better preventive measures. Thinking that the disease will cure itself or avoiding doctor visit may result in increase of the problem and expenses even endanger your life. We can take precaution methods by choosing healthy diet and making it a point to exercise regularly. Regular exercise and good nutritious food will make us less prone to diseases, and will also result in a healthy heart, mind and body. Preventive measures taken in work areas also lessen the intensity of suffering. For example if you focus on the market you can save yourself from financial catastrophe by perceiving the future losses. Preventive measure also helps in controlling population. Wise man always use this formula for the success, they never wait for the deadline to come near to start their work, instead they finish their work before deadline, this gives them time to solve any unseen problem that might occur during the process of their work. It is an old saying which holds true in daily life: No man is perfect we all do mistakes. But with the help of act of Prevention one can avoid doing many disasters, complexities, confusion and destruction. We can check ourselves from doing something by thinking about the outcome (that can happen because of our negligence) first and then take appropriate action. Each and every action should be measured carefully because solving the problem will be more time consuming and more painful compared to taking precaution so that the problem do not happen How to cite My Planet, Papers

My Planet Free Essays

â€Å"A stich in time saves nine. † Prevention is always better than cure, if we know that something with the passage of time might become dangerous then it better to take a precautionary step to combat the danger. So how many times you heard your parents and grandparents say this to you- take precaution dear and don’t give your problems a chance to arrive. We will write a custom essay sample on My Planet or any similar topic only for you Order Now So better work now and take precaution instead of fixing the damage later. This phase is applicable in many fields of life: If you are student then you should study every day, but generally all the confusion arises when you study only during exam. When you ignore your study in the early stages then you end up working hard during your examinations and risk your success. There is no need to gamble with your success if you do your studies appropriately on time. You should immediately go to a doctor and start your treatment, if there are certain visible symptoms of a disease, before getting diagnosed with that disease. There have been many cancer cases where the patient did not take his health seriously and later on with further deterioration of his health, he comes to know that he is suffering from cancer and is at the second or third stage. Had he been to the doctor earlier and diagnosed with his disease then he could have been easily cured in the first stage. Even in the case of other diseases early detection helps in taking better preventive measures. Thinking that the disease will cure itself or avoiding doctor visit may result in increase of the problem and expenses even endanger your life. We can take precaution methods by choosing healthy diet and making it a point to exercise regularly. Regular exercise and good nutritious food will make us less prone to diseases, and will also result in a healthy heart, mind and body. Preventive measures taken in work areas also lessen the intensity of suffering. For example if you focus on the market you can save yourself from financial catastrophe by perceiving the future losses. Preventive measure also helps in controlling population. Wise man always use this formula for the success, they never wait for the deadline to come near to start their work, instead they finish their work before deadline, this gives them time to solve any unseen problem that might occur during the process of their work. It is an old saying which holds true in daily life: No man is perfect we all do mistakes. But with the help of act of Prevention one can avoid doing many disasters, complexities, confusion and destruction. We can check ourselves from doing something by thinking about the outcome (that can happen because of our negligence) first and then take appropriate action. Each and every action should be measured carefully because solving the problem will be more time consuming and more painful compared to taking precaution so that the problem do not happen How to cite My Planet, Papers

The Development of the Rock Musical free essay sample

To provide an overview of the scope of the genre of rock opera, will briefly discuss some of the most renowned works. It is usually the British rock band The Who that is credited with releasing the first rock opera ever (in 1969), Tommy. It was partly inspired by the Beetles 1967 concept album SST. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, which had already experimented with alternatives to the simple, single-oriented approach to recording Alps. Interestingly, as far as productivity is concerned, this genre reached its peak in the late sass and early sass in England 0 at a time hen rock and pop musicians were keen on experimenting with new musical forms and contents, and when society in Europe was, after the highly active sass in the United States, still very much interested in musical treatments of contemporary problems and hardships.The Whos rock opera follow-up to Tommy, Quadraphonic, was released in 1973; from 1969 to 1 975, another British rock band, the Kinks, released four rock operas: Arthur or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire (1 969), preservation (1 973), soap opera (1975), and Schoolboys in Disgrace (1975). We will write a custom essay sample on The Development of the Rock Musical or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Jotter Tulles front man Ian Anderson also experimented with the rock opera format in the 1 9705, contributing Thick as a Bank(1 972), A passion Play(1973), and TOO Old to Rockville: -ROR young to Die(1 976).Probably the last rock opera to come out of England was Pink Floods legendary double album The Wall in late 1979. The rock operas mentioned deal primarily with the problems of young, mainly working-class people in England, or with the role and image of rock musicians in society. Quadraphonic, for example, depicts the emotional emptiness, frustration, anger, rebellion, of an ultimate Who fan who belongs to a cool motorcycle nag, the Moods. He revolts against his parents, his boss, and any kind of alliance with ordinary peoples lives, their small pleasures and drama. The teenage hero, Jimmy has a problem with authority in general, but in the end he comes to realize that even his cool clique is dominated by the same relentless, inhumane rules and laws as the rest of society; the only difference seems to be the fashionable clothes the Moods are wearing and the trendy music they are listening to. Disillusioned he rides his motorcycle off the cliffs into the sea. The Kinks operas also deal with flashbacks. Schoolboys in Disgrace, for example, is a nostalgic trip through childhood, reviving sass rockabilly.It is a series of vignettes rather than an actual story, telling about a naughty schoolboy and his gang, who are always playing tricks on their teachers and bullying their schoolmates, until one day, after another incident, the schools principal decides to disgrace the boy and his gang in front of the whole school. This is the turning point in the boys life: he realizes that people in authority will always be there to kick him down, that the Disesta blishment will always put him in his place. Arthur, obviously a pun on the historically laden theme of King Arthur, was the Kinks most successful and critically acclaimed rock opera. It depicts the story of an ordinary London man who has spent most of his life on his knees, laying carpets, who is now retired, owns a nice little house in suburbia and leads a small life, numbed by the horrors of World War II and English bureaucracy. Now having reached the final stages of his unimportant life, Arthur reminisces and starts to question the meaning of his life, in which he has more often than not been treated Daly and looked down on, lost a son in the war and raised another one who has become a frustrated young man.Pink Floods The Wall is one of the most successful albums in rock history, topping the United States album chart for fifteen weeks in 1 980 and spanning off the hit single Another Brick in the Wall (Part which remained at No. 1 on the United States singles chart for four weeks. In the 1 9805 The Wall was made into a movie directed by Alan Parker and starring Bob Gelded in the lead role as Pink. Pink Floyd took The Wall on tour, with the most famous, if not c omplete performance taking place n Berlin after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.The Wall is a double album about a fictional, emotionally crippled, depressed rock star, Pink, who is unable to cope with the pressures of life and therefore builds a wall around him. The wall is obviously a metaphor for his psychological isolation, for the barrier he creates to distance himself from his pain. As parts of his life spin out of control, the wall grows and Pink ultimately blames everyone, particularly women, for his incapability to deal with his neuroses. The origins of his deplorable state is illustrated by flashbacks in individual songs, such asPinks childhood memories of his fathers death in World War II (Another Brick in the Wall [Part his overprotective mother (Mother), the repressive school system, and his fascination with and fear of sex (Young Lust). When his record company uses drugs to get him to perform, his onstage persona is transformed into a homophobic fascist. In the albums last song, The Trial, Pink finally faces himself, mentally prosecutes himself, and the wall comes tumbling down. On the musical plane, the opera mirrors the fragmentary presentation of the story, seamlessly blending melodic reagents, sound effects, and larger musi cal numbers (cuff. The Wall: Pink Floyd). In the end, Pink 0 very much like Jimmy in Quadraphonic L] is disillusioned by his success, feels trapped by fame and wounded by his failed relationships; salvation through rock music does not take place. As we have seen with the works discussed above, the interest in hard-core rock opera in the sass can most directly be attributed to sociological causes. If we now take a closer look at Tommy, probably the most famous rock opera, we will encounter some of the key factors and mechanisms that are at play in rock peer, its production, and its reception in general.Tommy was written by Pete Townsend, leading member of the British rock band The Who, and was first released as a double concept album on 23 May 1969 D at a time when England was lurching from crisis to crisis, shaken by an extremely weak economy, a high unemployment rate, high inflation, strikes, and social friction. The ALP became a huge hit for the band, climbing up to No. 4 in the United States album charts (staying on the charts for forty-seven weeks) and to No. 2 in the United Kingdom. By 1 993, the band had sold two lion copies Of the album in the United States alone. Pinball Wizard was released as a single and reached No. 4 and No. 5 in the united Kingdom and United States respectively. Tommy is set in England from the sass to the sass and tells the story of a boy who is traumatized by childhood experiences. As a small child Tommy witnesses his father, believed missing in World War II, return from captivity and kill his mothers lover. As a result the boy becomes blind, deaf and dumb, and is subjected to psychological, medical and sexual abuse by his family and doctors. Although the story is operatic, the means of expression on the musical plane are reminiscent of an oratorio. All four members of The Who sing for much of the time, no one singer portraying any one character. However, The Whos pure working-class style rockabilly in part fails to generate and detail the emotions found in the libretto, and to some extent lacks musical originality and innovation. Hence, the Tommy score doesnt seem to have a particularly strong personality of its own. In that, the music explicitly reflects working-class ideals and can be seen as successfully underscoring the libretto.It is a one-dimensional world that is portrayed in the story, so the rather one-dimensional music effectively describes the characters lives. It obviously works best in the depiction of Tommys frustrations and aggressions, possibly because rock music is traditionally associated with those emotions and notions. The Indenture, an instrumental number reminiscent in its function within the rock opera of an intermezzo in classical opera, for example, offers very exciting and stimulating music describing Tommys acid trip. The Who performed the rock peer non-stop for nearly two years, to rave reviews especially in England and the United States.Their live shows attracted a vast new audience who was captured and fascinated by the rock theater-like performances. The Who had gone from a Designing band to an Album band, had won critical acclaim and credibility, although the BBC and various rock radio stations in the United States had banned the album for its daring content from the onset. The Who also became the first rock band ever to perform their rock opera at the Metropolitan Opera in New York( June 7 1970). They went on to perform it in peer houses in Canada and Germany.Soon Tommy took on a life of its own: it was adapted for a ballet, an orchestral pop album performed by the London Symphony Orc hestra (1 972), In the past three decades the rock opera has repeatedly been revived, by The Who themselves in concert performances as well as in theater performances of various musical versions, frequently staged and produced by Townsend himself. With its quality rock music and the tale of lust, LSI, rebellion, sadism, and retribution, Tommy perfectly captures the sass spirit, and in that Tommy is very much representative of rock operas in general.