To Run and Leap with Peasants: Idealism and Stereotype Formation in The Book of the Courtier
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
In the sixteenth century, the ideal was inseparable from the ruling class: it was a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy, the aristocracy establishing itself as the ideal while simultaneously defining the ideal. The members of the nobility lived in tightly-monitored roles. Idealism was not about the...
The Serpent Underneath: A Lesbian's Defense of Lady Macbeth
Essay - 9 pages - Literature
“Dyke,” hiss the schoolboys, to the girls with grass-stained knees and dirt-streaked cheeks. To the girls who run faster, throw further, tackle harder than the prides of fatherhood manifest. A word, but so much more a performance. A stereotype, but so much more an expectation....
The Purpose of Purpose: Aesthetics and the Unity of Context and Form in Third-World Literature
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
All literary texts are both political and aesthetic. Words in and of themselves are innately sensual, inseparable from the emotions they evoke in a reader. They are also political, pieces of language steeped in history and theory. However, writers often plan toward one extreme, selecting their...
"The Oppressive Christian Faith as Detrimental to Africans and Native Americans"
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
Christianity. It sounds innocent enough. But, with that religion comes a dogma with a dark side; an aspect of oppression for minorities. The Christian faith was never the choice for Africans and Native Americans. The word of God was on the lips of white Europeans who wanted to spread their...
"The Faustian-Bargain Theme Found in The Monkey's Paw, The Playground, and The Black Lake"
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Temptation preys upon what we wish for and what we dream for. Want a flashy car: a cherry red, nitrous infused Lamborghini with leather seats, a thumping sound system and a set of wicked hydraulics? Sure it sounds good, but how possible is that on such a measly salary? Maybe, but only after...
"Jud Crandall: Neighbor, Mentor, Father"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
With experience comes knowledge. Sometimes, the experience might not make sense, and it helps to have a guiding hand. No, this is not the introduction to Chicken Soup for the Soul, but more like an intro for Chicken Soup for the Soulless. The spiritual world is difficult for the hardened realist...
"Homer Loves Odysseus; Virgil Loves Aeneas - but Aeneas Doesn't Love Dido"
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
Influence comes in many forms - religion, music, books, and authors. By experiencing different people's views, we gain a sense of understanding the world through their eyes. We take cues from others, how they think, act and do in the world, and internalize their beliefs. The religious zealot...
Ariel's Levels of Consciousness
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
William Shakespeare's extensive investigation into social life in his earlier plays allowed him to instead focus on the more complex topic of human consciousness, which he pursues through magical inhuman characters, in his final play The Tempest. In his book The Feeling of What Happens, Antonio...
Summary and Review of "The Iraqw of Tanzania" and "Hunger and Shame"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The Iraqw of Tanzania, by Katherine Snyder, is a detailed ethnographic account of the affects of Maendeleo (progress and development) on the Iraqw people of northern Tanzania, shaped partially by the struggle between the young and the old to capture the true essence of Iraqw culture. However,...
"The Significance of Comic Irreverence"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Irreverence in comedy has been at the forefront of recent comedic performances. In one television show, ‘The Office', depicts supervisor David Brent, performed by Ricky Gervais, as an irreverent ‘funny man'. In one episode, while orienting a new employee around the office, he listens to...
"Gender Bending Androgynous Sexuality in Baz Luhrmann's William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Gender and sexuality are very difficult concepts to define in our post-modern age. To begin with, the term is outdated to fit the social norms of today: attraction lies anywhere and is not confined to ‘heterosexual love' between a man and a woman. Gay, lesbian and bi-sexual are terms used to...
"Richard Cory's Lost Suicide Letter"
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
Paul Laurence Dunbar and Edwin Arlington Robinson created “We Wear the Mask” and “Richard Cory” during the literary renaissance after World War I. Society was targeted and critiqued by authors who wanted to describe the “spiritual problems and disillusionments” (p...
"The Advantages of the Setting of the Country-House in Detective-Stories"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The author of either a novel or a short story has one main purpose: to dazzle the reader. However, dazzling the reader is a difficult process because we don't all have the same attention spans, or have the same interests, or even enjoy the same words on the pages that other reader's find...
Don Quixote: Chivalry Then and Now
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
“A manifestation of any of these qualities: bravery, courtesy, honor.” This is the definition of the world chivalry as found in the dictionary. Though it was first coined during the Medieval Age, the idea still hold true today. One of the greatest books of chivalry is Miguel de...
The True Horrors "The Prophetic Voice"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
When Steven King releases a new novel it is bound to be one of the scariest works of literature around. King's books, filled with images of deformed dolls and haunted houses, strike fear in the hearts of his readers. King's writing appeals to our senses, torturing and manipulating them to create...
Religious Skepticism: "Oedipus Tyrannus"
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
The ancient heroes and rulers all had many great qualities that allowed them to rise to such as level, but all were aware that the gods could take it all away in an instant. Therefore, these great men prayed and sacrificed to the divinities and feared their power greatly. However, in Sophocles'...
Gentiles and Gnomes: The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and the Apostle Paul
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
The letters of Paul are the first written communication following the crucifixion of Christ. Paul's letters at first appear to be more written commands rather than correspondences. The letters of Paul are usually interpreted as laws given by Paul to different peoples concerning the worship of...
"Guilty Bloom: Hallucination Technique Reveals Leopold Bloom's Unconscious in Ulysses"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
A hallucination typically connotes a bad meaning for the character who admits to having one; either the person is mentally unstable or he experiences a hallucination from the consumption of illicit drugs. However, in James Joyce's novel Ulysses there is a different meaning to the word all...
Irrational Underground Man
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
“I am a sick man” are the opening words to Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella Notes from Underground. For the narrator, the Underground Man is both figuratively and literally sick - his liver hurts but he will not receive treatment from doctors. Indeed, only a ‘sick man' would choose to...
"Physiognomy in The Jungle, The Rise of Silas Lapham, The Marrow of Tradition and The Portrait of a Lady"
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
A red colored complexion signifies a fiery temperament. A yellow or green hue of the skin may hint at sickness. A square jaw means the epitome of masculinity. Authors such as Upton Sinclair, Henry James, Charles W. Chesnutt and William Dean Howells used physiognomy to relay important qualities...
Hamlet
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet meets his demise with acceptance as he has reached a matured, highly introspective level of self-awareness. His state of satisfaction derives from a rigorous course of transformation. Throughout the play, he explores the design of mankind which he believes...
Manipulating God
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
William Faulkner's novel, As I Lay Dying portrays confused characters who attempt to assuage their instabilities by deferring to a higher force. Typically, people look to religion to reconcile haunting ambiguities and fill the voids in their lives. Establishing a secure belief system provides...
"What's Love Got to Do with It"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The Beatles echo popular sentiment with their hit tune from the 60's, “Can't buy me love.” The lyrics profess that love holds more value than money or materialistic cravings. Certainly, a romantic relationship can yield substantial benefits to both participants, including companionship,...
The Cunning Edge
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Each individual develops his own vision of the universe. A naïve person looks up to the sky to see the moon and strains to glimpse a shooting star, or perhaps, a distant planet. Euphoric about what appears in the distance, he becomes oblivious to what lies directly in front of him. Spending all...
Reality Blights
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
No matter how hard a person tries, he cannot escape a world exploding with discrimination, violence, and blind hatred. The smell of death permeates the streets as wars rage and the taste of man's inhumanity lingers in the air. An idealistic individual attempts to shield himself from the evil,...
Keeping the faith
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Organized religion epitomizes man's need to give order and meaning to his life. Philosophy represents his effort to rationalize the principles of his faith and conduct. Acceptance of God or an all-powerful supreme being who governs the universe remains the cornerstone of most major religions, but...
To Kill a Mockingbird
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
"Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mocking bird," explains Miss Maudie in Harper Lee's...
Dissecting Romeo and Juliet
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
When studying Romeo and Juliet, most critics focus on four main points: Romeo's and Juliet's death scene, the relationship between the lovers, a feminist look at Juliet's character, and the structure of the play as a whole. However, the death scene is the most criticized aspect of the play,...
Toni Morrison's Struggle to Find an Identity
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
In Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination Morrison rejects the theory that American literature reflects white male views. She argues that “Africanism”, a term she uses “for the denotative and connotative blackness that African peoples have come to signify”...
Open Me Carefully
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout her life, Emily Dickinson wrote nearly 1,800 poems, many of which are known and cherished throughout the world. Like many other great writers, Dickinson not only showed talent in her poetry but in her other forms of writing as well. Nearly as famous as her poems, many of Dickinson's...
