Essay on Apocalypse

That is, individual’s apocalyptic thoughts, dreams or spiritual visions tend to come true at one point in history, necessitating evaluation of various apocalyptic connotations with respect to phenomenon they try to predict. In the same fashion, understanding apocalypse requires a longitudinal analysis of factors and perspectives aforementioned or perceived in the spiritual visions to rule out the subjectivity of the originator or the source. Currently, individuals use the term to aggregate on the outcome of a catastrophic event or to describe series of detrimental events against nature and the human race (Peebles 3). Contextually, the revelation perspective of apocalypse boils down to knowledgeable perception of end times and the spiritual manifestation of the obligation to converge individual desires toward utopic or dystopic realms. Over the years, dramatic and literal representations portray Los Angeles in apocalyptic light, thus begging for a holistic evaluation of these representations within the realms of apocalypse.

Conceptualization of apocalypse requires an intuitive connection of the end to the beginning, guided by mental or fictional ideas about the end. In this case, one can predetermine the end without confirming or investigating the historical significance or their prediction. Looking at various movies from an artistic perspective, one can conclude that their historical allegory has little to do with Los Angeles as a city of doom despite the representations. In such a case, the city plays a passive role in a majority of action-packed and apocalypse themed movies; just a mere background to for commercial purposes. Looking at various works of fiction, books and films alike, the motivation behind the creativity sums up to the creators perceived need to influence the audience into like the piece of art. That is, associating the historic unfolding of events with the cultural or human expectations of the “resulting” situation(s) may lead to the establishment of vague and persistent fear of unknown but expected.

Correspondingly, the association of events to an apocalyptic ending stems from knowledge of the dangers of the factors contributing to their existence but the association, in most cases, lacks the flexibility to identify the existing escape from chronicity of the imagined events. That is, in as much as Los Angeles gets ubiquitous portrayal in apocalyptic light, investigating the existing channels of escaping the apocalypse would vindicate the city’s perceived guilty conscious. For instance, in Joan’s “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”, she foresees Los Angeles weather as that which elucidates catastrophe and apocalypse and goes on to associate violence and unpredictability to the long and bitter winters experienced in New England to elucidate the quality of life in Los Angeles (pp. In context, her presentation of the city in apocalyptic light brings out the custom expectation of a city characterized by crime and social instability; making the unpredictability aspect complicate the general life in the city.

To conclude, the concept of apocalypse revolves around fictions and realities of events and benchmarked on the chronology of events with respect to individual or societal cognition. The level of civility at personal and societal levels determines the degree of subtilty or foreboding with respect to dissonance of the paradigmatic events and reality. The impeding skepticism explains the individual’s ability to understand a phenomenon as a product of the heights of civility or the cognitive aspect of conceptualizing the same phenomenon. Depiction of Los Angeles as an apocalyptic city has nothing to do with immanent disaster but viewing the artistic works from a fictional and imagination perspective vindicates the city as a passive player in all the representations. Notably, the constant destruction of its landmarks and subsequent vaporization of its residents into oblivion not only puts the city in a geographical disadvantage courtesy of evolving creativity in film making, but also paints out the realities of manmade catastrophes which have nothing to do with the city as a geographical entity.

Kermode, Frank. The Sense of an Ending Studies in the theory of fiction. Millington, Gareth. Los Angeles, urban history and neo-noir cinema.  Routledge International Handbook of Visual Criminology (2017): 442.