The Church's Grasp: Captivity in Joyce's Dubliners - published: 12/04/2010
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
It is easy to recognize when one is held captive by the unfamiliar, but the crippling effect of familiar forces is not so easily realized. Throughout American captivity narratives, typically female Anglo-Americans are ensnared by Native Americans, the “other” of early Anglo-American...
Descartes' dream argument and its followed knowledge
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
Meditations on first philosophy, a text written by René Descartes, is one of Descartes most recognized works. The book is divided in to 6 meditations in which Descartes helps the meditator cast a series of progressively radical doubts on preconceived notions, and metaphysical beliefs. The...
Defining virtues in Plato's Euthyphro
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
In this essay I examine the motivations behind Socrates' pursuit of a precise definition of a virtue. The particular virtue that interests me is piety, examined by Socrates and his interlocutor, Euthyphro, in Plato's Euthyphro. Like many of Plato's early dialogues, Euthyphro features the standard...
The parodic treatment of religion in contemporary culture is just another manifestation of the consumerism of late capitalism
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
During the twentieth century, in the unstable years following the world wars, capitalism proved itself to be a successful and enduring system. This success seems to have come mainly from its, ' ...extraordinary versatility and flexability...' [1]. Despite many threats, such as the rising...
Renaissance Literature is indebted more to emblematic and allegorical modes, than to modern forms of realism
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
The aftermath of reformation, mid 16th.Century, left the art and literary world in upheaval. The former art of Catholicism which had been figurative and vivid, depicting the saints in all their glory, was redundant and even despised. Many reformers believed that to idolize the saints and to...
The prose style of an author
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
What is so compelling about Faulkner's work is his gloriously bold approach toward form and content. He embraces the dark side of humanity, through the characters of Jason, Caddy and Quentin, refusing to deny or disguise its existence and in doing so redefines despair, it is no longer, '...
Representations of history and regeneration by Pat Barker
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
Barker has chosen to tell the tale from the viewpoint of the patients and staff of a war hospital, which treats mainly psychiatric injuries caused by battle. Straight away we are dealing with issues of masculinity. These patients have been discharged, not for receiving injuries in the line of...
What role did women play within Anglo Saxon culture?
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout history, the position of women in society has fluxed dramatically. It seems quite clear from looking at historical evidence that most of this movement has been a decline, rather than an improvement in the social attitudes towards women. In Anglo- Saxons times, women were valued members...
How is the notion of woman represented by 18th century writing?
Thesis - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout the 18th century, we see gender as a site of much anxiety. At this time, women were emerging as key contributors to both political and popular writing, through works such as Oroonoko, by Aphra Behn, and A Vindication of the Rights of Man, by Mary Wollenstonecraft Godwin. This feminine...
Willy Loman and the death of an American dreamer
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman is a portrait of a man who wrestles with his own delusions of success and happiness within the business world. One of the main themes of the story is how the main character has attached his success and failures in other areas of life to his self-image as a...
The things they carried: Time O'Brien
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
This book is, debatably, a memoir of the Vietnam War. By debatably, I mean to say that it is written in the form of a memoir, although the author denies that many of these events actually took place. This book includes the stories of Tim O'Brien and the soldiers that he knew in Vietnam during the...
The House on Mango Street
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose this book because my aunt recommended me reading it. Although I don't usually read books like this, because it was a book about coming of age, I thought it would be interesting to read. This book was somewhat like The Catcher in the Rye, but instead of taking place in New York, it...
Daisy Miller: Henry James
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book takes place in 1878 and centers around the idea of an extended trip throughout Europe, which was very popular among wealthy Americans at this time. This novel addresses the behavior of the young American girls who visit Europe and due to their new distance from home, become very...
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
I chose to read the Picture of Dorian Gray because I was already semi familiar with the story and numerous friends recommended it to me. This famous novel takes place in nineteenth century England and revolves around the high society of that time and place. There is a supernatural aspect to this...
The Secret Life of Bees: Sue Kidd
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
I selected this book because I know a lot of people who have read it before. I was expecting this book to be about animals, well more like bees. It turns out to be more about the story of a young white girl living in a time without black rights. This book is fiction; it takes place in a time...
Hard Times by Charles Dickens
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Charles Dickens highlights that facts aren't everything. You can't always rely on them, because they can burn out being untrue and serving you wrong. When Louisa was talking to her father, Mr. Gradgrind about how facts ruined her life and how she didn't know how to rebate and handle her feelings,...
Brave New World: Aldous Huxley
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Brave New World is a classic novel written by Aldous Huxley. Set in the future, this book portrays a society where each person's life is visibly controlled by the views that they have been taught since they were decanted out of their bottles. This book is set in England, and explains the process...
Fyodor Dostoevsky: Coping with flaws and surviving in society
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
In Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, the narrator writes from an underground location reflecting on the flaws in man and the society he once lived in. Through examining his days prior to retreating underground the narrator comes to hate the bonds of society and human nature more and...
Siddhartha by Herman Hesse
Book review - 2 pages - Literature
This book was originally recommended to me by freshman humanities teacher. When I read the book previously, it helped me to make sense of my own beliefs and I recently came to a point in my life where I felt that it was time to read it again. This is really a story of philosophy and religion. It...
Psychological analysis in the Heart of Darkness
Book review - 1 pages - Literature
Orphaned at the age of twelve, Conrad's writing reflects solidarity. In his most popular novel Heart of Darkness he states, “We live, as we dream- alone.” Common themes in his works are alienation, confusion, and doubt. He wrote not only about physical threats but also about inner...
Integrated essay on the empire in the West, France and England as powerful states, the medieval period and Black Death in Europe
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Charlemagne's coronation as emperor at St. Peter's Basilica heralded a new era for the West and for the Byzantine Empire. Charlemagne became the strong leader at the helm and his missi dominici kept a watchful eye on territories that were far away. The governments of France and England could not...
Revolutions in thought
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
In the 18th and 19th centuries, natural philosophers were making great claims on the nature of the world around them. Although they did not have some of the technology that is available today, they were able to make assumptions about the composition of certain substances through the inference of...
Gender and Christian life in first Corinthians and first Timothy
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Analysis of Biblical texts inherently involves examinations into issues of morality and behavior according to Christian doctrine. The Apostle Paul, whose writings are a major focal point of much of the New Testament, addresses these matters with a series of letters to Christian congregations as...
Historical perspectives on social Darwinism and the impetus behind European imperialism in the 19th century
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Contemporary society is rooted in the idea of the nation state, both as a geographical institution and as a symbol. This idea, however, is not unique to the modern world. Rather, it is one that dates back to the very beginning of human existence and spans the historical timeline, from the...
Odradek: A structuralist interpretation
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
The need to assign meaning is a distinct human quality. Individuals seek, and to a certain extent are defined by, the methods by which the objects and observations that occupy space in a perceived reality are explained and rationalized. Failure to do so implies not only a lack of understanding,...
Modeled in God's image
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Humans have believed in a God or gods since the beginning of time but the concept of what a god is like varies. Historic tales have given us a clear picture of the polytheistic gods who were believed to have ruled the land in the time of Gilgamesh and Homer but most modern religions draw from...
Sin and punishment from East To West
Thesis - 2 pages - Philosophy
Texts from Feudal Japan to Western Europe differ in the way they view sin and punishment. The Analects of Confucius and The Divine Comedy by Dante have opposing positions on how past beliefs and actions should be viewed by people of the present. Confucius' Analects are also irrelevant in the...
T.s. eliot's the hollow men: exploring self-realization - published: 30/03/2010
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
When reading “The Hollow Men”, by T.S. Eliot, one's immediate response might be to consider it against to context of which it was written. Such context may be purely historical or may revolve around the author's social life. All of these accounts may prove significant in assessing the...
The history of poetry: A magazine of verse
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
Harriet Monroe became famous for her magazine, but even more so, her open-door policy. There were many poets that just wouldn't get published, authors listed above, because their works were not accepted in society. T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was considered...
Iago and Lady Macbeth: The nature of their evil
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
The conflict between good and evil is one of the oldest and most consistently fascinating sources of literary drama. It is a primary motor of countless movies and books, just as it has always been one of the most important issues for philosophers and religious scholars. Shakespeare explored the...
