316 Search Results for Nature of Tragic Hero
Short stories are poignant pieces of literature, as pithy and powerful as poetry but in a more straightforward and relatable package. Like poetry, a short story relies on literary devices like symbolism and imagery, characterization and setting, to c Continue Reading...
As Robillard points out, "Julian's cynicism shuts him off from any human association," (143). He has lost his family home due to the changes taking place in Southern society. The economic infrastructure that was supported by slavery has crumbled. Ju Continue Reading...
Sophocles & Milton
Sophocles wrote his great works two and a half millennia ago, and yet today they are still fresh and powerful. This is because Sophocles deals with deep and important human situations and emotions. Even though we can no longer Continue Reading...
Essay Topic Examples
1. The American Dream in "The Great Gatsby":
Explore how F. Scott Fitzgerald critiques the concept of the American Dream through the characters and their pursuits in the novel.
2. Symbolism in "The Great Continue Reading...
Milton and Shakespeare
When comparing John Milton and William Shakespeare, it is interesting to note similarities and parallels between works such as "Julius Caesar" and "Paradise Lost." Indeed, the characters in both works show remarkably how the u Continue Reading...
"So Wieland wrought a goodly store of rings alike to that his Swan-wife gave him, and strung them on a hempen cord against his wall: amongst them all she should not recognize her own" (Wagner 102). A king named Neiding (Envy)takes Wieland captive, b Continue Reading...
Faulkner utilizes many techniques in setting up this mystery and one is imagery. The images associated with the house are ones that conjure up visions of death. For example, we read that the house had "a big, squarish frame house that had once been Continue Reading...
It is rather like a feud in this respect -- the one who commits the final act of revenge is declared the winner.
Hector is the Trojan warrior whose character differs greatly from that of Achilles and who has very different reasons for fighting. Whe Continue Reading...
Joyce Carol Oates sees "The Picture of Dorian Gray" as a revelation as to another side of Wilde; one that questioned the aestheticism professed by Lord Henry and other characters in the novel.
She claims that the book evokes Faust and the devil, as Continue Reading...
Essay Topic Examples
1. The Evolution of the Vampire Mythos:
This essay would explore the historical and cultural evolution of vampire legends from their earliest iterations in folklore to their present-day representations in media and literature. I Continue Reading...
Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is a fictionalized account of life in puritan New England. Although the story is an amalgamation of characters, places, and events, the journals of Hawthorne's contemporaries and forebears reveals a sinister c Continue Reading...
And Sellers plays the repressed social engineer Strangelove, the timid Merkin Muffley, and the persevering Mandrake -- all with mechanical precision. Kubrick's unflinching camera acts as a character, too, slyly observing the exposition of humanity i Continue Reading...
Baudelaire's poem makes clear that beauty is actually closer to a form of death, acting like a drug that poisons one's mind, creates addiction and finally brings one closer to death.
The very title of the book of poems the flowers of Evil which ass Continue Reading...
Classical Literature
Job and Oedipus: A Comparison and Contrast Essay
There are many similarities between Job and Oedipus, and there are a few differences that must be discussed as well. The purpose and goal of this paper is to make clear the impor Continue Reading...
Good Man is Hard to Find
Flannery O'Conner's short story, a Good Man is Hard to Find is a modern parable. The story is laced with symbolism and religious subtext. In many ways the piece is similar to classical Greek plays about pride and retributio Continue Reading...
Proust and Narrativity
We read Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time - that greatest work of his the title of which is more commonly translated as Remembrance of Things Past both because of the simple beauty of his language and because of the power Continue Reading...
Othello and Death Knocks: Two Characters Who Do Not Know Themselves
The definition of a tragic hero is a great man who is brought low by a single, yet fatal flaw within his character. Shakespeare's Othello can be said to have many flaws as well as v Continue Reading...
She appears very confident of her own abilities and desires. The movie emphasizes the issue of feminism and gender empowerment as one of the central if not the central theme of the entire story. This is decidedly not true of Ibsen's work, which focu Continue Reading...
Barstow, Marjorie. "Oedipus Rex as the Ideal Tragic Hero of Aristotle." The Classical
Weekly, vol. 6, no. 1, 2-4, 1912. Print.
Barstow observes one of Aristotle's fundamental points in her essay, which is that "Aristotle finds the end of human ende Continue Reading...
Classical and Modern Greek Theater
There are clear connections between the classical and modern theater in Greece - just as there are clear connections between the theater of classical Greece and the modern theater of the West in general. Much of wh Continue Reading...
protagonist Willy Loman from Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The writer provides the reader with an exploratory journey through the character of Willy Loman including his strengths, weaknesses and downfall. There were nine sources used to compl Continue Reading...
Multiculturalism
Myth, Literature, and the African World
The book Myth, Literature, and the African World, was published in 1976, twenty years before the author, Wole Soyinka, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
In his Preface, he clearly w Continue Reading...
epic narratives like Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and Lord of the Rings contain some of the same elements and archetypes as those found in the Biblical narratives. Sacrifice, bondage, exodus, and survival in the wilderness are themes in each of these Continue Reading...
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Okonkwo inflexible traditionalism pitted him against his gentle son Nwoye, who joined the Christian European missionaries. In the book, Oknokwo had to participate in a ceremonial human sacrifice and endure a seven-year exile after his gun accident Continue Reading...
The Godfather is the quintessential example of the gangster genre, which includes “films that deal with organized crime, often with mob families,” (Chapter 4). In fact, The Godfather also fits squarely within the gangster genre because it Continue Reading...
Dexter (The television series)
There is an increase of interest in Hollywood movies and television series set to expand on crime investigation. There are arguments as to how realistic these representations on the screen are in regards to real life e Continue Reading...
Both films irritated their relevant critical establishments, and in this way, De Palma's remade was truest to its source. Scarface 1983 savagery and energy united with its political portrait of the illicit drug trade form a memorable and powerful ev Continue Reading...
Reason vs Passion: Comparing Aristotle and Plato
Introduction
It must be well known among all students and scholars of philosophy that both Plato and Aristotle have a high regard for reason. But what is their view on passion? It might be surprising t Continue Reading...
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
The Catcher in the Rye was first published in 1951. The novel deals with the issues of identity, belonging, connection and alienation. This paper will review five articles written on the novel.
"Holden's Irony in Continue Reading...
As we have already mentioned, the mood and tone for moral corruption in New York City was prime in the 1920s and while it may seem there are the rich and the poor, class distinction among the rich plays an important role in the novel. Gatsby's succe Continue Reading...
Like Plato, More retains the belief in One God in his concept of the perfect society by injecting the foundation of Neoplatonism and blending it with a rather festive or carnival-like quality (Marius 1995 as qtd in SparkNotes 2010). Utopians enjoy Continue Reading...
Human Suffering in the Works of W. Faulkner, S. Plath, T. Roethke, and W. Shakespeare
Literature is considered as one of humanity's powerful medium of expression. Different forms of expression are used in literature, such as poetry, plays, novels, Continue Reading...
Chinua Achebe presents an archetypal patriarchal warrior with the character of Okonkwo in the novel Things Fall Apart. Okonkwo is described as being “well known,” his fame being based on quintessential masculine feats like winning wrestli Continue Reading...
Lolita in Light of Sontag's "Morality"
My experience reading Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was a pleasant one, an aesthetic experience that, as Susan Sontag states, appealed to my consciousness. Sontag suggests that art is better understood as somethin Continue Reading...
Moby Dick
In Herman Melville's Moby Dick, the character of Captain Ahab is repeatedly referred to as a "monomaniac" (Melville Chapter 41). In other words, he is a man obsessively devoted to and possessed by a single idea -- to get revenge upon the w Continue Reading...
"...the moment captured in the statue is an example of rhythmos, harmony and balance" (Encyclopedia: Discobolos)
The Dying Gaul, sometimes known as the Dying Trumpeter, is a "...ancient Greek statue of a dying warrior lying on the ground supporting Continue Reading...
McCandless Journey Hero
McCandless' Journey to Discovery and Heroic-Sanctity
In Into the Wild, Chris McCandless embarks on several different movements -- wandering, questing, the pilgrimage, the going-forth. At times, he seems to have a goal, and a Continue Reading...
Similar to many other initiation myths, Gilgamesh has to overcome obstacles such as the scorpion monsters that bar his way.
The intense desire that Gilgamesh has to find the answer to eternal life is shown in the poem by the fact that he rejects th Continue Reading...
Beware my lord" -- not of jealousy, but of self-hatred
Othello is often described as a tragic character because he is a great leader and military hero who is brought low by one, fatal personal flaw that he is otherwise unaware of-namely his jealous Continue Reading...