86). Jim symbolically inspires Laura to accept her individuality and to see that beneath her outstanding traits she is no different from anyone else. His gentility and kindness, borne of Southern culture, help Laura come to terms with herself and he Continue Reading...
Candide In his signature work Candide, French author Voltaire offers an extensive criticism of seventeenth and eighteenth-century social, cultural, and political realities. Aiming the brunt of his satirical attack on the elite strata of society, Vol Continue Reading...
In "Song of Myself," the longest and most complex of the three poems from Leaves of Grass, Whitman celebrates not only the self, but also the self with, and among others. This poem has 52 separate sections, each of them uniquely rich in imagery; th Continue Reading...
For Amy Tan, however, attempting, for her parents' sake, to become simultaneously Chinese and American, without compromising either culture, or herself, was a tricky balancing act. As E.D. Huntley adds: Amy Tan spent her childhood years attempting Continue Reading...
Tale of Genji Murasaki Shikibu's Tale of Genji details the insular and convoluted courtly life of Heian Japan, focusing especially on familial and sexual relationships. As such, the 54-chapter novel exposes Japanese social norms, even more than it d Continue Reading...
"A&P" by John Updike and "To his coy mistress" by Andrew Marvell Carpe Diem ("Seize the day"): Living for the present, realizing the future in "A&P" by John Updike and "To his coy mistress" by Andrew Marvell Literature, as one of the most i Continue Reading...
Bram Stoker's masterwork and greatest novel, Dracula, has been and remains one of the most culturally pervasive novelistic tropes of the last 100 years. Indeed, in multiple film versions as well as in the novel and myriad other mediums, it remains a Continue Reading...
Raymond Carver When one is seeking a bright, cheerily optimistic view of the world one does not automatically turn to the works of Raymond Carver. The short story writer - whom many critics cite as being the greatest master of that form since Ernest Continue Reading...
Islands in the Stream 1954 Nobel Laureate, Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961, has been an icon of the literary world for over seventy years. He has been called the greatest American author of the twentieth century and his novels and short stories are amon Continue Reading...
Maya Deren: An Experimental Life Maya Deren, born Eleanora Derenkowsky on April 29, 1917 in Kiev, Ukraine, has been referred to as "the high priestess of experimental cinema." (1) Even though she was a dancer, choreographer, poet, writer and photogr Continue Reading...
Racism as Presented in Shakespeare's 'Othello' The play Othello by William Shakespeare is the tragic story of a man who has moved from one culture to another. He looks differently than others because of Negroid features, which are mentioned in the p Continue Reading...
Lady With the Pet Dog According to Vladimir Nabokov, "The Lady with the Pet Dog" is referred to be one of the greatest stories ever written. The story was published in 1899, revealing a symbolic suitability according to the era. Chekhov, who was to Continue Reading...
FolkloreOne great thing about folklore is how it weaves fantasy into the stories. Cinderella and Rapunzel both are stories that feature some fantastic elements but that end with happy endings. There is some conflict in each, and there is also a princ Continue Reading...
Shylock Character the Merchant Venice Portia and Queen Elizabeth: Through the trenches of the microcosm of play, no character serves as much semblance to Elizabeth Tudor as Portia. I agree so, and forthwith draw more comparisons between her and a c Continue Reading...
Edgar Allan Poe as seen through the lens of Hitchcock Several authors have explored the aesthetic relationship between Edgar Allan Poe and Alfred Hitchcock, particularly writers like Dennis Perry and Donald Spoto among others. Although Poe has had Continue Reading...
Bars Fight" is Lucy Terry's only surviving work. Transmitted orally for approximately one hundred years before going into print, the ballad is considered the first composition of an African-American citizen. Born in 1724 in Africa, Terry, later marr Continue Reading...
However, Rich does not title the poem "Aunt Jennifer's Ring." Rather, Rich uses the title "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers" to offer a sense of hope, transformation, and overcoming. Patriarchy can be overcome with self-awareness. Aunt Jennifer is creating em Continue Reading...
Imagery & Tone in "Who Makes the Journey" Imagery and tone are very prominent elements in the poem "Who Makes the Journey" by Cathy Song. The persistent metaphor or analogy that Song uses is with respect to the movement of history and the moveme Continue Reading...
Things Fall Apart is not necessarily a novel about globalization, but the implications of a changing world -- and that includes issues related to globalization along with the fading of colonialism -- are an important part of this novel. On the surfac Continue Reading...
One of the primary ways the Berger chooses to explain this concept to his readers is through detailing the objectification of women, particularly in paintings. The male principles of power and authority have the propensity for viewing women as objec Continue Reading...
Garter Motto in the Merry Wives of Windsor," the author discusses the application of alternative Elizabethan translations of the motto sifts the play's characters ultimately surrendering to an idea of "knightly" behavior in The Merry Wives of Windso Continue Reading...
Medea as Tragic Hero The pattern of the tragic hero was first defined by Aristotle. Aristotle's work The Poetics discusses the art of Greek tragedy, and defines the rules for a tragic protagonist. If we examine these rules from Aristotle alongside t Continue Reading...
Europeans call upon Christendom to "applaud their courage and justice" as they persecute the natives for merely defending themselves. This simple, human response of self-defense is seen as evidence of barbarism by the Europeans. Of course, when the Continue Reading...
Colonel Brandon is a quiet and reserved man who loves Marianne. Of course the question arises as to why Brandon did not reveal Willoughby's character: unlike the intemperate Marianne, Brandon shows too much reserve. Willoughby, despite his faults, i Continue Reading...
On one hand, Iago's racism and spite seal Othello's fate -- but on the other hand, there is a suggestion that his nature may predispose him to such violence and credulousness. When realizing his folly, Othello, who told about his enslavement as a y Continue Reading...
She says she envies Seldon's work, even though he is not of the highest orders of society, but she cannot emulate his masculine example: "Ah, there's the difference -- a girl must, a man may if he chooses." She surveyed him critically. "Your coat's Continue Reading...
Manley forces Hulga to realize she is not the thought woman she wants to be and he forces Mrs. Hopewell and Mrs. Freeman that not all country people are good. Hulga is not the strong women she attempts to be, however, and nothing demonstrates this Continue Reading...
He writes, "Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness" (Stoker 225). It is clear that wantonness is not a characteristic to be admired in Victorian times, b Continue Reading...
The work expresses with clear honesty the need to express, reality and pain, in Wordworthian values. The expression of the work is poignant and clear, as the washerwoman goes through the process of noticing nature, as a guide for time rather than as Continue Reading...
Her remembrances of Peter, though, are different because they have the effect of affirming for her that she made the right decision in rejecting him. As she thinks of him, her conflict is not that she regrets not marrying him. Instead, the conflict Continue Reading...
(Hart & Hayman, p.177) Thus Joyce suggests that conventional national tales of origin, and national borders have become further and further collapsed in modernity. So long as people can envision a common, even familial bond between the two char Continue Reading...
e., the "P.O." Of this story's title). Sister has been driven to take up residence here by family discord. From here, we then learn, mostly implicitly, just how deep indeed the domestic discord (i.e., in today's psychological parlance, "dysfunctional Continue Reading...
(Shakespeare 1994) The play stands out from many aspects. However, there are some elements which make it one of the most important of Shakespeare's works and one of the most acclaimed. The tragedy comes from the eventual incompatibility between tru Continue Reading...
Moon is an outsider and stranger from a strange American place who has found a home in a formerly colonized non-white area, like Denoon. The missionary family of the Quarriers and the anonymous narrator of Mating provide, by virtue of their recent e Continue Reading...
Langston Hughes' Poem "Madam's Past History" The poem "Madam's Past History" is about a black woman asserting herself, remaining strong, and forcing people to show some respect for her, despite how society places her. In the voice of Madam Alberta Continue Reading...
Theodore Roethke In the American poet Theodore Roethke's poems "My Papa's Waltz," "Cuttings (Later)," and "Cuttings," ordinary aspects of the domestic environment, like a young child being taught to dance by his father or the routine pruning and cu Continue Reading...
Grapes of Wrath John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath, starkly and vividly describes the mass westward immigration of tens of thousands of displaced American Midwestern migrant workers, and the symbolically representative Joad family in p Continue Reading...
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley conceived her well-known novel, "Frankenstein," when she, her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley and their friends were at a house party near Geneva in 1816 and she was challenged to come up w Continue Reading...
She does not accept a world in which their native land has fallen and they have no emotional reaction to leaving it. So she negotiates an identity which has lost something. When her husband cannot accept this identity, and then apparently abandons h Continue Reading...
The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad -- as I am now. Laws an Continue Reading...
