The Challenges of Religion in Seventeenth Century Poetry
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Poetry has often been used as a vehicle to depict the complex aspects of religious life. Religion has always played a crucial role in the cultural development since the earliest times of mankind. Literature constituted an excellent means to express the feelings shared by the religious world....
Magic realism in 'The Enchantress of Florence'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Salman Rushdie's novel 'The Enchantress of Florence' is a powerful and multi-dimensional expression of the incarnation of globalization in literature. Important themes arise as relevant to globalization through the technical advantages of magic realism, which Rushdie employs as the key...
Temporal and Spatial divides and identity in 'Lucy'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Jamaica Kincaid's novel 'Lucy' illustrates the story of a girl with desperate desire to manipulate her personal identity. With motives so deeply ingrained in her determinedly expendable past and their manifestations in her present, her quest propels her obsessions divides past from...
Gynocriticism and 'Jane Eyre': The conflict of the female identity in language
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
When reading a novel like Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre', with both a female author and narrator, a series of implications arise by the structuring of a feminine language within the constructs of a patriarchal society, and thus, a masculine discourse; such an oppression innate to language...
The Presence of Language and Metaphysical Conceit in John Donne's 'The Flea' and 'The Good Morrow'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In her essay “Poetry as Language Presentation: John Donne, Poet, Preacher, Craftsman,” Anca Rosu writes, “In representing, revealing or reflecting, language becomes absent, imperceptible. It can be kept present only if it is not made to reveal or reflect” (Rosu, 14). Rosu...
The Structure of Sound: Edmund Spenser's 'Epithalamion'
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Edmund Spenser's “Epithalamion” is a certain divergence from the well established themes of grief and mourning over unrequited love so commonly embraced by Renaissance sonneteers. The departure from the expected brooding and pining voice is vividly divulged in a refreshingly sincere...
Oppression and limited discourse in Melville and Alcott
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' is a first person narrative of a lawyer's attempt to satiate his curiosity concerning Bartleby, a scrivener employed in his law office. His interest in the scrivener is the direct motive behind the lawyer's narrative, to the extent of a theme;...
Repetition and Ambiguity in Narrative Structures of 'The Monk'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The narrative, structural, and linguistic intricacies in Matthew Lewis' Gothic novel 'The Monk' illustrate a complex network of patterns and sequences that expand and contract the influence of ambiguity as a Gothic convention in the text. The novel's narrative structure can be...
'Black like me' by John Howard Griffin
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
'Black Like Me' is the account of the experiences of a white man, the author, who considered himself an expert in ‘race relations', but who had no real experience of how black people lived, so decided to change his skin pigmentation and travel in the South as a black man. This book...
'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals' - Applied Philosophy?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Immanuel Kant's presentation of the categorical imperative in 'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals' is considered by some as his most famous work. His presentation is accompanied by examples intended to show the categorical imperative. In this paper, I present a critique of these...
The Ten Oxherding Pictures
Dissertation - 19 pages - Philosophy
The 'Ten Oxherding Pictures' are also known as jugyuzu and are the creation of 12th century Kakuan Shion Zenji, a Buddhist priest who lived on Mount Ryozan in China during the end of the Northern Sung Dynasty (1126-1279 AD). He taught that all beings are fundamentally endowed with...
The Earth as our Blanket: The Struggle for Human Importance, as described by Annie Dillard in 'For the Time Being' and Karen Armstrong in 'The Case for God'
Book review - 3 pages - Philosophy
Humans are neither individually special nor even so collectively supreme as we have lately been purporting to be. This is what Amy Dillard, in 'For the Time Being' and Karen Armstrong, in 'The Case For God', operating on the framework that God is unexplainable, focus on the human...
The Order of the Eastern Star: A Vehicle for environmental Good?
Essay - 9 pages - Philosophy
The Order of the Eastern Star is not, technically, a religion (or, at least, its followers refuse to designate it as such). In the words of the present day Grand Secretary, it is “not intended to replace a religion,” but to complement one. The Order is a fraternal organization that...
Why I'm More Important than You Are: A Case for Agent-Centered Prerogatives
Dissertation - 35 pages - Philosophy
We are acting permissibly when we do things like go to the movies once a year, or even once a month. Most of us would find it ridiculous if we were told we actually were not permitted to do these things. I consider anyone who disagrees with this claim to be outside of the accepted norms of...
The Problem with the 'Grue Problem'
Book review - 5 pages - Philosophy
Nelson Goodman, in his book 'Fact, Fiction and Forecast', presents a well known problem he calls “The New Riddle of Induction.” It seeks to criticize a basic kind of inductive reasoning most notably characterized by the phrase “all emeralds are green.” Goodman wants...
Thomas Nagel on death
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Let us assume for the time being that you believe cake to be a good, and find cake-eating emphatically positive. Now imagine that one day, when you go to your local bakery to eat your daily serving of cake, you find that cake no longer exists. They are out of cake indefinitely, they tell you,...
Sample Statement of Purpose - For a Philosopher
Course material - 2 pages - Philosophy
I haven't always wanted to be a philosopher. In fact, I've wanted to be many other things: a writer, a psychologist, an artist, perhaps even a scientist or doctor. As a child, I grew up imagining the things I wanted to be, but never what I wanted to do. "You can be anything you want to...
'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison: A comment
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison is a novel detailing an unnamed African-American's journey from the south to the streets of Harlem. The reader sees the main character attempt to find his place within the world, as well as within himself. In this novel written in 1947, there exists a...
The Writer and Nietzsche
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Throughout both 'The Birth of Tragedy' and 'The Genealogy of Morals', Friedrich Nietzsche explains the role and power of the artist. The artist, in particular, the writer, is a creator of illusions. Due to the increase in electronics and technology in the modern area, illusions...
Waiting for a Miracle: Waiting and its many forms portrayed in 'Largo Desolato', 'The Polish Complex', and, 'Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light'
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
“The typically human act of trying to see oneself is always fascinating, agonizing, comical, for we can never turn fast enough to see all sides at once in the mirror. And the greatest trick remains seeing how we see” ('The Polish Complex' Intro, page V). Throughout 'The...
Themes throughout 'The Wasteland'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Within 'The Wasteland' by T.S Eliot, there exists a vast array of literary elements used to turn this poem into something more than just a jumble of mixed up phrases and quotes. While this jumble builds the poem, it also makes it hard to identify a single meaning or purpose that lingers...
Why we need the system: Hobbes, Locke, and 'State of Nature'
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have each compiled an elaborate explanation of society, as they believe it ought to be. Hobbes in 'Leviathan' and Locke in 'Second Treatise of Government', have recorded their differing interpretations of the state of nature, the logic behind...
The homes of Catherine in 'Washington Square' and Frado of 'Our Nig'
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
The homes of Catherine in 'Washington Square' and Frado of 'Our Nig' are essential to the development and understanding of these heroines. Each novel places emphasis on different aspects of the homes as they relate to the most involved characters of the novel, particularly...
The Underrated Backstory: Backstory as it 'Effects Our Nig' and 'Washington Square'
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
The information provided in a backstory is often integral to the development of characters and plot within a narrative. In both 'Our Nig' and 'Washington Square', an account of the events prior to those of the central plot provide necessary context for a clear and cohesive tale....
Women in Ancient Societies
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
The roles and treatment of women in ancient societies varied greatly. Depending on which society is observed, one would have witnessed many different rules for the female population. Some societies were cruel and others were much more lenient and fair. Women in ancient societies sometimes had...
A Close Reading of "Trifles"
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
When reading any work of literature, one can miss many of the work's underlying aspects simply by not reading it carefully enough. A thorough and close reading of a work should yield much more satisfying results—the reader should understand themes and ideas that were important to the...
Parent/Child relations in American Literature
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout American Literature, one can notice many writings focus on either mother/daughter relationships or father/son relationships. These relationships are described in various ways, but one very common way involves parental love towards sometimes unappreciative children. This parental love...
Mission: Character analysis of Raskolnikov
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Should the character of Raskolnikov be considered a madman or a mentally disturbed person? Throughout the novel, Raskolnikov displays many symptoms that can be considered crazy. On the other hand, there are several mental defects that fit with Raskolnikov's behavior. Analyzing Raskolnikov...
The Gardens of Oxbridge and Fernham in the first chapter of 'A Room of One's Own'
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
This paper analyzes the first chapter of 'A Room of One's Own', and specifically the gardens of Oxbridge and Fernham. Virginia Woolf uses these two gardens to support her comparison between the status of men 'and women. In effect, they symbolize order versus chaos, rigidity versus...
Willful Monsters: Differences in attraction to Short Story Writing
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
As storytellers, Kelly Link and Aimee Bender each bring a distinctive sense of punch and personality to their writing. Both tackling short stories, they are able to create unique worlds within a few pages that draw in their readers and deliver fresh perspectives through the strangest of stories....
