'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...
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...
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...
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...
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,...
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,...
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...
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...
"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...
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...
A comparative account of the French and the English versions of one Beckett's text
Thesis - 8 pages - Literature
Translation is usually studied from another language to ours, in order to consider changes that have to be made. With Samuel Beckett, it is interesting to analyze the process of translation from French, which is not his mother tongue, to English. In fact, Beckett was, in the 50's, one of the rare...
Literature review and qualitative analysis
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
When doing my project, I will first have to gather information about the chosen topic from different resources. Books, articles, periodic literature, Internet, university publications will all together define my knowledge about the topic and give an idea of the previous research that has been...
Function of the Requiem in "Death of a Salesman"
Thesis - 9 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller (1915 - 2005) once revealed as regards his writing of Death of a Salesman that he “wished to create a form which, in itself as a form, would literally be the process of Willy Loman's way of mind”, and in this respect, the setting of the whole play actually stands for a...
Artaud's theatrical principles
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Artaud stated that ‘theatre is first ritualistic and magical, in other words bound to powers, […] and whose effectiveness is conveyed through gesture, directly linked to the rites of theatre which is the very practice and the expression of a hunger for magical and spiritual...
Analysis of "The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
In the popular short story The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allen Poe reveals the horrid theme that each person has a vicious wicked side or a dark side that can provoke the person into committing unthinkable sins for no apparent reason. Poe was an expert in writing thrillers which the psyche of the...
Major themes in Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried"
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
The effects of the Vietnam War left men with terrible everlasting images and countless troubles, according to Tim O'Brien's novel that portrays a war that was meaningless and strung out. O'Brien's book, “The Things They Carried” describes the everyday issues that war soldiers...
Compare and contrast Alan Paton's Cry, the beloved country and Chinua Achebe's Things fall apart
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country and Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart are both groundbreaking novels intertwining multifarious aspects of the human condition and human relationships to highlight the conflict between the white colonizers and native blacks in Africa at different points in...
Langston Hughes's "Trumpet Player"
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Langston Hughes's poem, "Trumpet Player", is both a celebration of and reach for a Black identity. The poem's vivid imagery and careful metaphors connote to a theme consistent among Hughes's work. The poem quietly speaks of oppression, of a violent past, of desperation and ongoing...
