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...
"From the purpose of playing": Determining a text of Hamlet
Thesis - 14 pages - Literature
In the introduction for Hamlet in William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, Gary Taylor writes that "of all the two-text plays, Hamlet comes closest to Lear in the scale and complexity of the textual variation apparently resulting from authorial revision" (401). Indeed, Hamlet's three...
August Strindberg and scenic symbolism
Case study - 6 pages - Literature
Although Strindberg claimed not to be a symbolist through much of his career, there are a number of symbols used in his plays. Strindberg's plot and characters have symbolic value, but they are used especially in the scenery - both environmental scenery and physical scenery. To explain -...
The Cherry Orchard: Chekhov's comedy Stanislavski's tragedy
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
When Anton Chekhov began his play The Cherry Orchard in December 1902, he intended it to be a farce in four acts. Having written it during a particularly awful bout with emphysema, it took almost a year for him to send it out to Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre, where it had been eagerly...
Witches in Popular Children's Fiction: A look at the portrayal of witches and witchcraft in select works of fiction since the 17th century
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Witches are very interesting group of people to read about. They have been at odds or different from the main-stream culture, and their practices and doings have been shrouded in secrecy and mystery, and evil-doing. For these reasons, witches make interesting characters in fictional stories, and...
Critical analysis of 'A Lesson before Dying'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Ernest J. Gaines wrote the novel, 'A Lesson before Dying' in which he highlighted the problems faced by the blacks during the 1940's in the South. However, the contextual time for the novel covers a whole century into until 1964. He writes about the complete devastation faced by the...
Ideological Ephemera: Why Zines will survive the internet ?
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
According to some arguments of literary analysis, Zines should have ceased to exist, or at least should be well on their way to a doomed demise, some years ago. The availability and accessibility of blogs, web journals and social networking sites ostensibly offer ample outlets for the immediate...
The novel "Charlotte Temple" as an example of a popular novel
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The novel Charlotte Temple is an example of what I believe to be a "popular novel". Charlotte Temple's appeal was born out of its solicitous plea to a generation of women who held a particular station in society. It warned them of dangers while morally evangelizing and re-emphasizing basic...
The myth of the contented slave
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The definition of contentment is to feel or manifest satisfaction with one's possessions, status or situation. Leslie Howard Owens holds to the opinion that the "contented slave" is a "myth". In his book, "This Species of Property" the personality and attitudes of southern slaves is shown...
Fear: The deconstruction of normality
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
In all honesty and truthfulness, post-war, American authors have produced quite a frightening element in this country's literary discourse. Frightening, because they amass self-critical observations that have ultimately led to paranoia regarding the reliability of life's constructs and realities....
Chapter VIII's analysis of 'Human Bondage' by Somerset Maugham
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
The excerpt to analyse retraces what may be considered as a part of the main body of the plot of the apprenticeship novel Of Human Bondage by the English writer Somerset Maugham. The passage I'm about to try to analyse is extracted from the 58th chapter which means that the reader is already half...
Comparison between 'Nighthawks' by Hopper and Mystery and 'Melancholy of a Street' by de Chirico
Case study - 4 pages - Literature
The success of the Melancholy show demonstrated that existential issues are a productive source of inspiration for artists. Universal melancholy affects both painters and spectators. Hopper's Nighthawks and De Chirico's Mystery and Melancholy of a Street represent human metaphysical concern,...
What were the origins, the aspect, and the outcomes of the War of the Roses?
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
“And here I prophesy: this brawl today, Grown to this faction in the Temple garden, Shall send, between the Red Rose and the White, A thousand souls to death and deadly night.”: this is how the Earl of Warwick announces the War of the Roses in Shakespeare's Henry VI. Indeed, from 1455...
"Clay" excerpt from Dubliners by James Joyce, 1914
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
The passage studied here is an excerpt from "Clay", one of the short stories of the book Dubliners, which was written by James Joyce in 1914. In this story, the main character Maria is invited to spend the Hallow Eve evening at Joe's, a man of whom she once was the nurse but who is now...
A review of Mead's God and Gold
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Walter Russell Mead's text God and Gold : Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World is a difficult work, especially in terms of contemporary criticism, because it is revered by both right-wing conservatives and some socialists. The book explains (and to some degree may even argue...
The theme of "incomprehension" in The Secret River, by Kate Grenville
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
According to one review, The Secret River “invites us to examine flawed human lives and to reflect on a tragedy of mutual incomprehension.” Discuss how this theme of “incomprehension” is explored in the novel. One of the main themes of The Secret River, a historical novel...
Spanish literature: The Celestina and Lazarillo de Tormes
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The Celestina and Lazarillo de Tormes, books written at the outset of Spain's golden age, are extremely important works. The Celestina is a love story, while Lazarillo de Tormes is one of the first picaresque novels. Despite this major difference, they are similar in that they are both critiques...
The Russian novel: the narrator's role in Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
“Death”(Part 5, chapter 20) is the only chapter of Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina with a title. It is not the only death in the book; Anna's suicide at the end of the novel is arguably the story's most important death. Although the death of Nikolai Levin by no means drastically alters the...
Shakespeare's plays illustrated by Blake and Fuseli: The artists as critics
Essay - 11 pages - Literature
It has judiciously been pointed out that “pictures from Shakespeare account[ed] for about one fifth -some 2 300!- of the total number of literary paintings recorded between 1760 and 1900” (R. Altick). As a matter of fact, the renewed interest in nineteenth century British art in the...
Order and disorder in Robinson Crusoe
Book review - 14 pages - Literature
“Necessity is the mother of inventions” could undoubtedly be regarded as one of Daniel Defoe (1660 - 1731)'s favourite proverb, and indeed, he employed the maxim in his History of Trade, writing: “Necessity which is the Mother, and Convenience which is the Handmaid of Invention,...
Ernest Gellner: Nations and nationalism
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Ernest Gellner's Nations and Nationalism , which was published in 1983, is a core reading for the study of eighteenth and nineteenth-century European history for it cleverly conceptualizes notions -namely nationalism and nation-state- that are essential components of that period. The course...
Is "To Kill a Mockingbird" (by Harper Lee) a novel about racism?
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Writing To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee has chosen to make a description of the Deep South during the Great Depression of the 30's through the eyes of a young girl, leaving us uncertain about the qualification of this novel. Indeed, reading the biography of the author, the reader realizes that...
Dr. Seward's blind rationalism in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897)
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
Seward, young British physician and unreliable narrator, embodies late-Victorian scientism and rationalism in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Irony in Seward's portrayal reveals much of the author's criticism of the late-Victorian scientific establishment. Although Seward sees himself as...
Literature review on virtual tour technology
Essay - 9 pages - Literature
Numerous developments in virtual technologies show up in modern world creating for people more and more comforts and possibilities. Different kinds of visions that we may see with the help of virtual tour technology, have elevated the status of virtual environment to the level of pop...
Incidents in the life of a slave girl, by Harriet Jacobs
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
The novel Incidents in the life of a slave girl is an autobiography written by Harriet Jacobs in 1861. In this book, she relates various events of the life she had when she was a slave in South Carolina. She confides in the reader and gives details of the difficulties she had to face in her...
King Lear, by William Shakespeare: My experience of reading Shakespeare
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Reading in Original version a Shakespeare play was in my mind a kind of challenge. I read quite a few of Shakespeare's plays in the past, but they were translated in French. I had heard so much about Shakespeare's wonderful style, the beautiful English language he used that I wanted to...
Essay on Hemingway's book: "The Sun Also Rises"
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
Published in 1926, The sun also rises is considered as one of Hemingway's best novels. It depicts the circle of American expatriate writers living in Paris in the 20's. Through drinks, rides in Montparnasse, fiestas in Spain, the relationship between Brett and Jake and the remaining...
The emotional and psychological reader's response in "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "The Blue Hotel"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
"The Yellow Wall-paper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Blue Hotel" by Stephen Crane are two short stories which, beyond the colour references in the title, try to develop certain psychological responses within the reader. I will attempt to show how through two different points of view for...
John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath": Chapter 3
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
The chapter under study is an extract from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Situated at the beginning of the novel, chapter 3 offers a very detailed description of a land turtle trying to reach the other side of the highway. Its journey is described as a very slow and painful one, full...
