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...
"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...
Animals Rights and Human Wrongs in a Fast Food Nation
Book review - 5 pages - Philosophy
The abolitionist movement in slave-era America was clear-cut and its ethos was simple: Free all slaves in the name of human rights. Looking back centuries later at those who argued for slavery, most would find holes in their argument that Africans were meant to be slaves because of their racial...
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...
Songs of Caged Birds: life and its ups and downs
Book review - 3 pages - Philosophy
Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings is her first book dedicated to “all the strong black birds of promise who defy the odds and gods and sing their songs.” The cage represents a life of racism, poverty, illiteracy and dysfunction. The black birds represent the certain people...
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...
Adler/Maslow Personality: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Competition is something that has run in my blood since I can remember. I have gone against the grain of what a “normal” female gender role entails, I have been very competitive in all aspect of my life, starting when I was younger with a co-ed baseball team, which blossomed into...
The Perfect Blend of Grit and Grace: An examination of cowgirls and their gender roles at the turn of the century
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
Every little girl at one time or another played cowgirl. Being a cowgirl is always much more fun than being a little lady, which is what all parents want of their daughters. Little ladies that wear white gloves to church, say their “please” and “thank you's,” and make sure...
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....
