'We don't live here anymore': The historicity of what was once the deserted house
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
Historically, women in industrialized societies are placed at a double disadvantage; in addition to occupational workloads and/or the rigor of citizenship, they are also responsible for the daily maintenance of the domestic sphere. In regarding women's experiences in Stalinist-era Soviet Russia,...
Especially the fallen tree the snow picks out in the woods to show
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
If one were to read through A.R. Ammons' poems, in chronological order, they would see a clear progression of tone and theme; his subject matter, as well as they voice he uses to portray it, goes through definite transformation as he becomes a more experienced poet and, perhaps most importantly,...
Blindness: A Jose Saramago's novel
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
The blindness that suddenly and quickly takes hold of an entire population in Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness, is atypical in many ways. Most notably, those afflicted are not plunged into darkness; rather, all agree that they are floating in a sea of milky whiteness, unable to make out shapes or...
Images of identity in feminist and immigrant Canadian literature - Interior landscapes of the self in Munro and Ricci
Thesis - 7 pages - Literature
This paper will compare and contrast the authorial approach to coming-of-age narratives, and the formation of identities in two works of Canadian fiction, Alice Munro's Lives of Girls and Women and Nino Ricci's Lives of the Saints. Munro employs a first-person narrative that interweaves the voice...
Exploring Caliban in Shakespeare's the tempest in the context of post-colonialist theory
Thesis - 7 pages - Literature
The character, Caliban, from Shakespeare's play The Tempest, is one of the most widely discussed individual characters in Shakespeare's entire canon, especially in relation to issues of the way that Europeans represent (or mis-represent) non-white peoples, historically, in literature and in...
Putting the rest cure to rest: An interpretive essay on "The Yellow Wallpaper"
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Since its publication in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, has generated a variety of interpretations. Originally viewed to be a ghost story, it has been regarded as Gothic literature, science fiction, a statement on postpartum depression, having Victorian patriarchal...
Exploring conflicting meanings of the child in Lewis Carroll's Victorian classic Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
The construction of childhood in Victorian England helps lend a context to the meaning(s) of Lewis Carroll's children's classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This short paper will examine the emergence of ‘childhood' as a new category, beginning in the late 18th century, expanded and...
A strong resemblance between "Lost in the Funhouse" and "Young Goodman Brown"
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
It is truly revealing when one can make a comparison of two completely unrelated stories and find a basic meaning and theme that is analogous to both, despite superficial characteristics. Nathaniel Hawthorne's “Young Goodman Brown” is about a religious man, Goodman Brown, who embarks on...
A review of the book An Unquiet Mind: A memoir of moods and madness
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Reading An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jamison, was much like driving by the scene of a horrible car wreck. We snuck a peek, turned a page, faced disturbing images and soon became entwined with gut wrenching emotions that made us want to run away. As if transfixed by a cavalcade of emergency...
"The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants," book series; and why it has a deep connection with American teen girls
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The "Sisterhood of The Traveling Pants," consists of four books. These books have solidified the series as a literary masterpiece that has been heralded as a great work for young people. It has been celebrated as a wonderful literary effort. The books evoke thoughts of serene and picturesque...
The one sided battled between man and nature
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
As long as the existence of literature, writers have sought to provide insight on the battle between man and nature. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the unyielding power of nature and the dire consequences of man's desire to conquer nature, play out in this cautionary tale. Two examples that will...
Science in action: Review
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Latour suggests that the construction of facts and machines is a collective process. He argues that there is nothing inherent in a statement that makes it a fact; rather it is the future processes of others who accept it, support it, ignore it, challenge it, etc wherein the destiny of a statement...
Catastrophe and image, international post-modern fiction
Thesis - 11 pages - Literature
I have found two common, linked problems under scrutiny in three short stories by non-American authors. The three stories are “And of Clay We Are Created” (Isabel Allende), “The Laugher” (Heinrich Böll), and “The Street-Sweeping Show” (Feng Jicai), and the problems...
Divided We Fall:Gender, Androgyny, and the troubled union of Adam and Eve
Tutorials/exercises - 7 pages - Literature
The single most important question at the center of John Milton's Paradise Lost is the question of predestination. The poem hinges on the assertion that mankind has been created “sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall” (III.99); if we do not accept this assertion, and instead...
Masquerade in seductive fictions
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
In her Masquerade and Civilization, Terry Castle hypothesizes that the concept of “masquerade” is central to 18th century consciousness, and provides an intriguing insight into how the self was conceived of in “the age of disguise”(Castle, 5). Implicit in the idea of...
Ethics and faith in "Fear and Trembling"
Thesis - 8 pages - Literature
Soren Kierkegaard once wrote about himself, saying “Once I am dead, Fear and Trembling alone will be enough for an imperishable name as an author” (Kierkegaard's Papirer). Undoubtedly one of his most popular works, it is no surprise he could foresee the endless amount of philosophical...
Dorothy Day (Part III): Nonviolent resistance
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
The Catholic Worker Movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin whose aim is to “live in accordance with the justice and charity of Jesus Christ.” As the name indicates, the Catholic Worker Movement was heavily influenced by Catholicism, yet not restricted to simple preaching of...
Machiavellian strategies in Koestler's "Darkness at Noon"
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
What would it be acceptable for a society to sacrifice in order to achieve a utopia? Does this utopia exist, and if so, is it even possible to achieve it? Is it possible to build paradise from concrete? Arthur Koestler, in his novel Darkness at Noon , demonstrates the impracticality of using...
Dual critique: "The American Scholar" and "The Poet"
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
Emerson begins “The American Scholar” by declaring, “I accept the topic which not only usage, but the nature of our association, seem to prescribe to this day - the AMERICAN SCHOLAR” (53). These opening lines are incredibly specific; the atmosphere in which he finds himself...
Shakespeare's Shylock: A sympathetic portrait of a Jew in an anti-semitic culture
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice plays host to one of the most complex and intriguing characters of the accomplished playwright's literary canon. In the character of Shylock, Shakespeare presents a view of the Jews that is, while still negative by the standards of modern culture,...
"Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali ": A review
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
Megan Jennaway's theoretical framework in the first half of Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali, fuses feminist anthropology, Marxist power asymmetry discourse, and postmodernist concerns of representation and reflexivity. She posits that sexuality and desire have not been explored in...
Greek and Shakespearean influences on Olivier's Hamlet
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Staging and adaptation is around us everywhere today, but not too many people put much thought into where the origins of our modern television, movies, and theater come from. We as the 21st century have come a long way from the beginning of theater to where we are now but not all the elements...
Reflections of race and American culture in the 'Tom' show
Thesis - 10 pages - Literature
In Martin Scorsese's 2002 film Gangs of New York, the two main characters-Amsterdam Vallon (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Bill "the Butcher" Cutting (played by Daniel Day-Lewis)- attend a 'Tom' show (a stage adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin) in New York City. In this scene,...
The duality of Holocaust literature
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
Other than the odd revisionist, the vast majority of sentient humans will attest to the horror that was the Holocaust. Unfortunately, those who can give first hand testimonies are few in number and quickly disappearing. The story gets even more muddled when psychologists protest that memory is...
Ulysses and Androgyny: Bloom as modernity's new womanly man
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
"Is he a jew [sic] or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he?or who is he?" (Ulysses 438) asks Ned Lambert regarding the character of Leopold Bloom to the pub-dwellers at Barney Kiernan's. This appears to be a predominant question that runs through Ulysses and many...
The impact of poetry and literature on the father-son relationship in John Stuart Mill's 'Autobiography' and Edmund Gosse's 'Father and Son'
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
When comparing John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and Edmund Gosse's Father and Son, one cannot ignore the fact that the two are very similar with respect to the strong father-son relationship that both James Mill and Phillip Gosse had with their sons. Mill's and Gosse's primary influence in their...
The quotidian interrupted: The fantastic in the everyday and its familial consequences in Franz Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis';
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
"In front of this monstrous creature I refuse to pronounce my brother's name, and therefore I merely say: we have to get rid of it [emphasis mine]?All you have to do is try to shake off the idea that that's Gregor" (47), cries Grete to her father as tempers and patience flare at the end...
Italian futurism and art: Poetry, theatre, and war
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
“Erect on the summit of the world, once again we hurl our defiance to the stars!” (MASD 253), cries Marinetti in “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism 1909”. A very passionate, yet aggressive statement which, when analyzed, serves as a very pertinent encompassment of...
Solving the human problem: Mrs. Alving, Juno Boyle and tragic motherhood
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
In Raymond Williams' Modern Tragedy, the famous scholar provides an outstanding explanation for the roles of tragic hero and tragic action in modern drama. He argues that "the ordinary tragic action is what happens through the hero" (79, italics are mine). In consequence, the modern tragic...
The Threepenny Opera and the Musical Gestus of Kurt Weill
Thesis - 7 pages - Literature
These characteristics which Salten describes seem to relate to the concept of gestus, which is a difficult word to interpret but nevertheless has become the crucial link connecting Brecht's theories of acting, playwriting and theatrical production. In epic theatre, actors become demonstrators...
