Investigating Madness Within Power Structures
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Kafka's The Metamorphosis is full of power structures that dictate the actions of each character. Each character finds him or herself in a role of accountability and responsibility that dictates how he or she acts, particularly towards other characters. Gregor, for instance, is accountable to his...
Eying Down Sanctuary: A Study of the Effects of Representation upon Readers
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Laura Tanner, in her Intimate Violence, points out that, while reading, one becomes detached from victims of violence in particular texts such that the reader is able to observe the act of violence without suffering its consequences (Tanner, 9). While Tanner is correct in her assertion that...
Sex With Necks: An Investigation of Phallic Imagery
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
In literature, the vampire bite is often interpreted as a symbol of coitus between the vampire and his or her victim. However, when one takes a closer look into the anatomy and functions involved in the sex of particular blood-sucking scenes found in vampire literature, it becomes clear that the...
Stein's Translation of Art to Literature
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Because Gertrude Stein works within the medium of writing instead of painting, it is easier for her audience to view her separate from Cubism or Post-Impressionism though it still stands that they influenced her. She shares many values and ideals held by the members of those two painterly...
A Contrast of Lovers An Analysis of "To His Coy Mistress" and "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Is it better to have loved and lost, than never loved at all? When considering the abstractness and relativity of love, poetry is an art form unrivaled. T.S. Eliot and Andrew Marvell, each poets of incredible vision, analyzed love in two entirely different lights while concurrently capturing...
Faust and Nature: A Look Goethe's Faust
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
The thinker's woe at his own ignorance, despite some great deal of learning, has been a common literary predicament since the Age of Reason. While many of the mathematicians and scientists kept insisting upon the reducibility of existence to laws, educated men of other fields have not always...
Modern women writers: Essay on So Long a Letter, by Mariama Bâ
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
"Par l'écriture, [les femmes africaines] signent leur premier acte de rébellion contre ces sociétés qui ont toujours fait d'elles de simples spectatrices". In this sentence, the author shows that writing is a form of emancipation for African women. In the context of decolonization of the...
A comparative account of the French and the English versions of one Beckett's text
Essay - 12 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...
"Corpsing" (by Toby Litt) as a thriller?
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
According to International Thriller Writers, a thriller is characterized by "the sudden rush of emotions, the excitement, and the sense of suspense, apprehension, and exhilaration that drive the narrative, sometimes subtly with peaks and lulls, and sometimes at a constant, breakneck pace." In...
The different types of irony
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
One of the definitions of irony attributed to Aristotle is "saying something but meaning the opposite". This means that irony is displayed, when, in making a statement, the speaker wants to communicate something else. Kierkegaard, (1996) in Concept of Irony, resumes this idea, saying that with...
"Pride and Prejudice", Commentary of Volume II, Chapter 11, " And this ", cried Darcyend of chapter
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
This excerpt, taken from the second part of Volume II Chapter 11, of Pride and Prejudice, is located in the middle of Jane Austen's novel and deals with Darcy's first proposal of marriage to Elizabeth. The author has carefully structured the novel so that Darcy's proposal comes at the...
Reflection on Lowell's "For the union Dead"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Robert Lowell opens his poem, For the Union Dead, with an image of destruction, despair, and the loss of something that represents his youth. This opening stanza sets the tone for the rest of the poem. For the Union Dead is ultimately more discouraging than inspiring. Its disheartening tone can...
The grapes of wrath: analysis of chapter 6
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
This excerpt, taken from Chapter 6 of ?The Grapes of Wrath', deals with Muley Graves's account of the depletion of man, when he is separated from his land. It is the third of many narrative chapters, which move away from the social, economic and historical situations that shape the...
The pre-raphaelite children of Sir John Everett Millais (1840 ? 1896)
Essay - 25 pages - Literature
In 1855, John Everett Millais begins one of his most intriguing paintings, the painting that will mark his career as one of the founders of the PRB. His models are a group of young girls, all of them under 13, allegedly chosen for their youth and beauty. Between 1856 and 1868, John Everett...
The Appearance in Dorian Gray
Essay - 2 pages - Literature
The Picture of Dorian Gray is the story of the title character who wishes to stay young and handsome while his portrait becomes older and uglier. As such, we can say that appearance is an important theme in the novel. While discussing the relationship between appearance and essence, it is...
The Earle Perry Charlton Story
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The Earle Perry Charlton biography, the Charlton Story, is about one of America's greatest entrepreneurs, in the early 1900's. The book chronicles Charlton's life from birth to death, and explains in detail his business relationships and tactics. Overall the main topic of the book was how...
Courtly Romances: Literature or Theatre?
Tutorials/exercises - 6 pages - Literature
The definitions of theatre and, less specifically, performance, have been in constant flux since theorists set about trying to create them. Oscar Brockett, in his History of the Theatre, opens his text with the statement that “performative elements are present in every society, no matter...
Melancholy in Winnie the pooh
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Winnie-the-pooh is a fictional bear created by Alan Alexander Milne. The character first appeared in the children's books Winnie-the-pooh (1926) and Winnie at the Pooh Corner (1928). It is a reference to children literature, since the Pooh stories have been translated into many languages,...
The American History of Race & Gender in Literature
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Throughout the course of American history, the literature of the nation has served to reflect the social climate of the time in which it was written. Society's values in regards to both race and gender have thus been contextualized in history by American writers. In some cases, American literary...
Fate versus Free Will: Dave Boyle
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
The explicit mention of fate occurs only once in regard to Dave Boyle in Dennis Lehane's Mystic River, but the battle between fate and free will in his life is evident throughout the novel. Dave Boyle, a tragic character, has little free will to change the pre-determined forces that have shaped...
Breaking Through the Trappings of Stereotyped Femininity
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Edna Pontellier is a victim of the mother/whore duality, unable to escape the conditions of her culture that prevent her from being capable of self-actualization, and so walks into the ocean and never comes out again. This is the conclusion to Kate Chopin's novel The Awakening, in which she...
Post impressionism in To the Lighthouse
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
Very little endures in Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse; by the third book most of the characters have died tragic and largely overlooked deaths, or they have disappeared almost without mention. Only two characters, the neurotic philosopher Mr. Ramsay and the lone artist Lily Briscoe are...
The Liminal Period in the Cinderella Fairy Tale
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
In “The Little Glass Slipper”, Cinderella is undergoing what anthropologist Victor Turner, in his theory regarding rites de passage, would regard as a transitional period between being a girl under the protection of her mother and a woman under the protection of a husband. During this...
Dr. Faustus and Eve's Sins and Judgments
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Milton's Eve and Marlowe's Doctor Faustus were duped into spiritual doom in pursuit of knowledge, both seeking knowledge bought power at the expense of their spirit. Doctor Faustus sells his soul to Satan, exchanging it for knowledge of magic, while Eve ignores God's command not to eat the fruit...
Alienation in the Butcher Boy
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
In the Butcher Boy, Patrick McCabe paints a picture of the perfectly dysfunctional family in The Bradys, who are shown in stark contrast to the perfectly normal family, the Nugents. From the start, Francie Brady's family was the epitome of unstable. Francie's father was an alcoholic who abused...
Style vs. Substance in The Sea
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
The Sea is no doubt, a difficult novel to read. John Banville's language can be quite strenuous, and at some times, enigmatic. No major events or plot points seem to occur in The Sea, that is, externally. There is not much of a linear plot, if any. Almost everything that happens in the main...
Chinese Mythology, Religion and History: Look At The Journey to The West
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Often times, there is a distinct line between fact and fiction - between history and mythology, and even religion. However, in many of China's classic novels this line is blurred to the point of non-existence. A perfect example of this is Wu Cheng'en's The Journey to the West. Wu Cheng'en...
The Time Machine and the Plight of the Chinese Immigrant in 19th Century American West
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
The Time Machine, written in 1895, describes the adventures the Time Traveler as he explores the 800 thousandth century and the unknown eons unto the dying of our sun. The bulk of the story occurs in the year 802,701, where the Time Traveler stops and encounters a strange species called the...
Fraud: A night-time adventure leads to more trouble than expected
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Adventures in the middle of the night were something I was always very fond of. For the most part they never seemed to get me into much trouble; I just coveted the feeling of being able to sneak out of my house without getting caught. For a fifteen-year-old, it was definitely a thrilling feeling....
Bartleby: A Christ-figure
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance,” concludes the lawyer in Melville's “Bartleby the Scrivener” (Arp and Johnson 589). This statement rings true, as any reader of the enigmatic short story will find himself or herself equally aggravated by the strange...
