Irrelevant cynicism
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
In John Gardner's Grendel, the Dragon's most important character trait is his complete and limitless knowledge of the past, present, and future, producing his biting and relentless sarcasm and his ability to understand the complete and utter irrelevance of the daily exploits of Grendel and...
The warmth in life: (Despite the frost)
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
It is from the ancient Greeks and the Miltonic era that romantic poets have learned to so casually reject their profound place in society. They claim often to be some small part of an awesome whole; the vastness of earth, its circularity (life cycle), the infinitudes of time all decreasing the...
Homeless Mothers: Book review and topic discussion
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Homeless Mothers: Face to Face with Women and Poverty by Deborah R. Connolly (University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis, 2000) is an ethnography based on participant observation and extensive interviews and written for the general public. Its main subjects are homeless mothers and their...
Physical deterioration of Beckett Characters
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
As a playwright, Samuel Beckett wrote unconventional plays that tested the boundaries of theater. His stories are often perplexing upon first glance, and many employ devices not often seen by audiences, including disembodied voices, the lack of a full physical body throughout the play, and...
The appeal of Toru
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
The main character of Norwegian Wood is Toru Watanabe. As the central figure in the novel, he meets and interacts with many other characters in the book. He finds himself in a position where, at least in his own opinion, there are a lot of characters that are drawn to him for one reason or...
Baudrillard on image: Illusion
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Our modern society is obsessed with the image in many different ways. The more our technology has progressed, the more we have found ways in which to create images in ways that are indiscernible from reality. Special effects in movies are defining the way that we view cinema, and televisions...
The ancient history and literature of England
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
The Romans, following their usual policy, had destroyed all jealousies among the British tribes, but, at the same time, had destroyed their power of self-defense. When the last Roman garrison was withdrawn in 410, Britain was like a derelict ship. The “Picts” and the “Scots”...
Famous women poets: Emily Dickinson
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
As a byproduct of the sheer amount of Emily Dickinson poetry that has been recovered, readers have been given a unique slant into the progression of her innermost, clandestine perspectives. Over time topics have been revisited, and perspectives rewritten by her lush poems, brimmed with new...
The changing English language
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Over the past 700 years or so, English sentences have shrunk from around 70 words per sentence in circa 1380 to around 20 words in a typical general-internet book today. An analysis of a work each from the respective periods indicates that such change in the linguistic features of the language...
White noise
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Traditional nature writers often describe the benefit man can derive from interacting with nature. For example, in Nature , Ralph Waldo Emerson describes “in the presence of nature a wild delight runs through man, in spite of real sorrows” (Emerson 38). Furthermore, he purports that...
Colonialism in Things fall apart
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
Colonialism is the enforcement of political, cultural, economic, and military troops over the weak nations in order to exploit them; it is the method employed to spread capitalism and its values. When Britain embraced Capitalism, it started to colonize nations so as to secure its material...
Character analysis: Okonkwo
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
Okonkwo is the main character of the book “Things Fall Apart,” by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe. This character is a hero to his village, a clansman, warrior, farmer and family man. However, no one is ever perfect. As Aristotle said, a tragic hero is defined by a noble or heroic person...
An Upheaval by Anton Chekhov
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
“An Upheaval” by Anton Chekhov is a story about a young girl, Mashenka Pavletsky, who works as a governess for an upper-class household. Mashenka, who once felt herself superior to the lady of the house, has had her room searched because her boss, Fedosya Vassilyevna Kushkin, had lost a...
Children's stories: Basic propaganda
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
“No; it is never worth while to do wrong. Little boys who read this story, consider which you would have rather been- the honest boy, or the thief?” So read the very last lines of The Orange-Man; or The Honest Boy and the Thief. This tale clearly espouses a moral message, as the story...
The magician's nephew: Perception shaped by the imagination
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
C. S. Lewis wrote seven stories that made up The Chronicles of Narnia. All of the seven stories have characteristics that pertain to “perception shaped by the imagination”, a subheading of Colin Duriez's A Field Guide to Narnia. Of the seven stories I am going to focus on The Magician's...
The Lion King on Broadway
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
The lights went out and everyone grew immediately quiet. Music from the side of the theater began to play. With the first note I was all Goosebumps. Suddenly an orange/yellow circle appears from the center of the stage. It rises perfectly as though it is the rising sun. A single voice is heard...
Gwendolyn Brooks
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Gwendolyn Brooks is one of the most influential poets known in the African American community. She challenged minds to expand, by writing truth and real-life situations based on her own experiences. Brooks in a sense helped cope with face to face struggles during the time when racism was high....
Evil and ugliness in Frankenstein
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
“Only bad witches are ugly.” That is the famous phrase uttered by Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, after Dorothy reveals that she has “never seen a beautiful witch before.” Stereotypical roles of the beautiful heroine and ugly villain are so common in drama and writing,...
A take on tears
Tutorials/exercises - 2 pages - Literature
The thing that irks people about Allen Ginsberg is that he doesn't care who he offends…or, for that matter, if he offends. He wants to awaken emotion in people, and he doesn't care whether the emotions are good or bad—just as long as they're there, and they're strong. His poem...
A view of a view
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Elizabeth Bishop's poem “View of the Capitol from the Library of Congress” possesses profound imagery and, when it is read, the reader immediately gets transported into the speaker's serene vision. Bishop takes the reader on a journey with her words, and through this journey a speaker...
Marvell's "Horatian Ode": Conflicts and ambiguities
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Analyzing the poem “An Horatian Ode Upon Cromwell's Return from Ireland” by Andrew Marvell was difficult, because the poem is constantly undermining its own constructions. Also, reading the poem in the Broadview Anthology, one cannot help but glance at the footnotes, to gain further...
An American as a melting pot
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
A definition such as this is rare, especially among early American literature. To clearly state an exact concept so simply is difficult, however defining what is an American is near impossible. J. Hector St John de Crevecoeur was one of the exceptions. In his book, Letters From an American...
The imagination's art
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Art is life and life is art. There is no difference, at least not when literature is at hand. Three key elements exist in the realization of a written work of art. There is the author who gives the unintentional start to the creation of literature as an art form. Also there is the reader who...
Summary of Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut is the fictional story told by Leon Trout, the ghost of a man who died during the construction of the ship “Bahia de Darwin.” Trout observes the passengers of this ship as they make their way on the “Nature Cruise of the Century.” Excited to travel...
Comparison and contrast between Rober Lawell's "Man and Wife" and Gretel Ehrlich's "A match to the heart"
Essay - 1 pages - Literature
It was 1959 when Robert Lowell completed an amazing set of poems included in a collection named “Life Studies”. The most conspicuous among them - “Man and Wife”, tackles the problems of personal tragedy. The main accent is put on the troubled marriage, as the author reviews...
The nature and the role of women in Shakespeare's Macbeth
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
William Shakespeare's Macbeth is among the few of Shakespeare's plays where a female character plays a catalytic role. The female characters in this play are Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, the Three Witches, and Hecate. Lady Macbeth and her husband, Macbeth are the chief protagonists of the play....
On Chrétien de Troyes' The knight of the cart
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
In The Knight of the Cart, after Lancelot disposes of an opposing knight and saves a fair damsel, she offers a place of refuge so long as Lancelot sleeps with her. However reluctant, Lancelot agrees and to kill the time between dinner and sleep, he roams around outside the house. When he returns,...
Rationale behind silence and Queen Eufeme's Chaste Kissing
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
What a scandalous scene in Silence when Queen Eufeme and the protagonist, whom the story is named after, come close, very close to sleeping together. It is such an emotionally charged scene: a predator chasing its unwilling prey. Will Silence succumb to the Queen's advances to keep up...
Doing gender: Reasserting masculinity
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Gender is a socially constructed status. Based on how others perceive us we are labeled as men or women, the only two genders recognized in Western society. Walking to class I notice everyone is ‘doing gender,' or they display evidences of masculinity or femininity. I see a heterosexual...
Tess of d'Urbervilles: The dark shadow of death
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of d'Urbervilles tells the story of a young girl named Tess Durbeyfield who is seduced by, Alec d'Ubervilles, her distant relative. The loss of her virginity, and the birth of a child, haunts her and makes it impossible for her to succeed in marriage with the man she...
