The Price of the American Dream
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
The Great Gatsby relates Nick Carraway's experiences with a disillusioned assortment of wealthy individuals following his move to West Egg, the "less fashionable" counterpart to East egg, the home of antiquated affluence (5). In this harsh region of unlikely opposites, the 1915 Yale graduate...
Comedy in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales: 'Moral' Pilgrims and the Stories They Tell
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Viewed in a certain light, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales offers a realistic slice of life from a diverse cross section of fourteenth century English society. Represented among the travelers are members of all three estates, the church, nobility and peasantry, as well as the middle class,...
The Necessary Female Perspective in To Kill A Mockingbird
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
If a producer was to make an adaptation of Harper Lee's, To Kill a Mockingbird and wanted to extricate Miss Maudie's role from the film, not only would the dynamic of the characters be irreparably damaged, but the film would also be excluding one of the most powerful humanizing forces in the...
A Common Tongue: A Bit About Dialects in a Language
Essay - 3 pages - Linguistics & languages
Dialect is a variety of language used by people from a particular geographic area. This language is a complete system of verbal communication with its own vocabulary and grammar (“Dialect”).In America today, the common language is English. But what does English mean? While Standard...
Sal Paradise and the False Dream of America
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
American literature reveals a counter-culture of identity which undermines and even contradicts the popular optimism of national identity. Part of this undermining takes place in the ideologies of American literary characters, or in their “imaginary relationships…to the real conditions...
Commentary ' the chimney sweeper ' by William Blake
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
This poem, written in 1789 by William Blake, was published in “Songs of Inno-cence”. Like its fellow poems, it deals with childhood as an epitome for innocence and purity; here, the poet chooses to look into the life of the poor young boys who used to sweep chimneys in London in those...
Animal rights
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
The British have long been concerned about animal welfare and were among the first to call for legislation on this subject. There are three main concepts reflecting different approaches to the topic: - Conservation, which may be defined as the protection of wildlife and endangered species...
Are the Gospel-writers collectors of earlier stories, biographers or preachers?
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The Gospels raise a whole series of intriguing questions as we do not know for sure the authorship of these writings, nor the aim, not even the audience to whom it was written for. These three aspects of authorship, purpose and audience of the Gospels implicitly underline the general differences...
A Little Breathing Room : A Look At Feminism
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
“ ‘To speak behind others' backs is the ventilator of the heart…' and in this way we began a long session of ventilation of the heart” (Satrapi). With these words, Marjane Satrapi sets the stage for Embroideries and her intimate insight into the lives of women in an Iranian...
The Trees: Jupiter and Mercury Destroy the City of Phrygia
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Rife with evil, the town needed to be destroyed. Piety had built Phrygia, but gluttony, unfaithfulness, and greed had razed the now repugnant country. Disgusted by the drinking orgies, sexual perversions, and absence of worship, Jupiter and Mercury watched from the Heavens. Phrygia's time had...
The difference between sentences that are evaluated by linguistic significance alone and sentences that are evaluated by linguistic significance and other circumstances
Essay - 30 pages - Linguistics & languages
Significant differences among sentences of natural language does exist. It is not a matter of theoretical philosophy or theoretical linguistics but simply common sense. The difference I would like to focus on the sentences that are evaluated by linguistic significance alone and sentences that are...
Hamlet: Playing a Role
Case study - 3 pages - Literature
One of the most prominent themes in “Hamlet” is acting. Its uses and abuses are constantly remarked on by Hamlet and other characters. Hamlet's view of play-acting is a complicated one; sometimes he admires it, but at other times he is disillusioned with the fakery that playing demands....
New Zealand Popular Music
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
New Zealand rock and pop, while relatively new, are both very exciting and active genres of music. Several artists have found much success in the field over the years, having their music heard through New Zealand and sometimes even throughout Australia, Great Britain, and the United States....
Negative Portrayals of Heavy Metal Music
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
In today's world, the entertainment industry is one of the most prominent enterprises in the developed world, if not one of the top money makers. In fact, music sales alone have been a massive source of revenue, even regardless of the hits it has taken because of music piracy. Music, however,...
Thinking This Hard Hurts
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
Joseph K. is in trouble, and he doesn't know why. Accused of a crime the details of which he is not privy to, his life becomes one impossible search for an acquittal. All his energies are throwing into determining his crime and a way to prove his innocence, but ultimately his efforts are in...
Logical Positivism
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
Describe the logical positivist view of scientific theories. Explain at least one problem with the view, and assess whether it is a problem for all forms of logical positivism. Logical positivism, developed by the members of the Vienna Circle, was a new way of considering science and language. It...
Describe the distinction between Internalism and Externalism about moral motivation. Does Smith's argument against externalism work?
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
Moral motivation has always been the ground for fierce battles between different ways of thinking. The link between a belief and the will to act in accordance with the belief is indeed a mysterious problem. Many answers were found, and two schools emerged and opposed on the ground of moral...
Working out problems results in better problem solving performance than studying worked-out problems
Presentation - 9 pages - Philosophy
Performance = Accomplishment It is associated to effective management of work, support and feedback Cognitive Load = Effort The load imposed on the cognitive system of a learner when performing a particular task = the amount of effort required to perform a task. The factors affected by the...
Melts in your Mouth: A Look at Humbert Humbert's Lolita
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
Humbert, throughout Lolita, creates an inescapable defeat through his interactions with Lolita and his antagonist, Clare Quilty. These interactions contradict his early confidence in possessing Lolita. These characters consciously threat Humbert's exclusive relationship with Lolita. Their...
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...
Underground Egoism
Book review - 3 pages - Philosophy
Dostoevsky's Underground Man is an attempt to offer an example of the true result of egoism, as opposed to the rational egoism of Western European Enlightenment literature. It became the intellectual fashion at this time to believe that natural law was the only law, and that if men acted...
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...
