Magic realism in 'The Enchantress of Florence'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Salman Rushdie's novel 'The Enchantress of Florence' is a powerful and multi-dimensional expression of the incarnation of globalization in literature. Important themes arise as relevant to globalization through the technical advantages of magic realism, which Rushdie employs as the key...
Temporal and Spatial divides and identity in 'Lucy'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
Jamaica Kincaid's novel 'Lucy' illustrates the story of a girl with desperate desire to manipulate her personal identity. With motives so deeply ingrained in her determinedly expendable past and their manifestations in her present, her quest propels her obsessions divides past from...
Gynocriticism and 'Jane Eyre': The conflict of the female identity in language
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
When reading a novel like Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre', with both a female author and narrator, a series of implications arise by the structuring of a feminine language within the constructs of a patriarchal society, and thus, a masculine discourse; such an oppression innate to language...
The Presence of Language and Metaphysical Conceit in John Donne's 'The Flea' and 'The Good Morrow'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In her essay “Poetry as Language Presentation: John Donne, Poet, Preacher, Craftsman,” Anca Rosu writes, “In representing, revealing or reflecting, language becomes absent, imperceptible. It can be kept present only if it is not made to reveal or reflect” (Rosu, 14). Rosu...
The Structure of Sound: Edmund Spenser's 'Epithalamion'
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Edmund Spenser's “Epithalamion” is a certain divergence from the well established themes of grief and mourning over unrequited love so commonly embraced by Renaissance sonneteers. The departure from the expected brooding and pining voice is vividly divulged in a refreshingly sincere...
Oppression and limited discourse in Melville and Alcott
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Herman Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener' is a first person narrative of a lawyer's attempt to satiate his curiosity concerning Bartleby, a scrivener employed in his law office. His interest in the scrivener is the direct motive behind the lawyer's narrative, to the extent of a theme;...
Repetition and Ambiguity in Narrative Structures of 'The Monk'
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
The narrative, structural, and linguistic intricacies in Matthew Lewis' Gothic novel 'The Monk' illustrate a complex network of patterns and sequences that expand and contract the influence of ambiguity as a Gothic convention in the text. The novel's narrative structure can be...
'Black like me' by John Howard Griffin
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
'Black Like Me' is the account of the experiences of a white man, the author, who considered himself an expert in ‘race relations', but who had no real experience of how black people lived, so decided to change his skin pigmentation and travel in the South as a black man. This book...
'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals' - Applied Philosophy?
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
Immanuel Kant's presentation of the categorical imperative in 'Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals' is considered by some as his most famous work. His presentation is accompanied by examples intended to show the categorical imperative. In this paper, I present a critique of these...
W.E.B. DuBois "Of Alexander Crummel" - The Soul of Black Folks
Text commentary - 5 pages - Literature
With the collection of fourteen essays The Soul of Black Folks , published in 1903, W.E.B. DuBois created a huge division within the movement of black protest in the USA. When the most influential leader of this movement, Booker T. Washington promoted educational training and especially an...
Amanda Smith Jemand -The South is our home - Black Women in White America
Text commentary - 5 pages - Literature
The document "The South is our home" written by Amanda Smith Jemand is an article extracted from the journal The Independent, Vol.52 N°2725 dated February 21, 1901. This article was reprinted in the book Black Women in White America. This book is an anthology of documents about black history in...
Writing Huck Finn: Twain's Creative Process
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The book Writing Huck Finn: Mark Twain's Creative Process, published in 1992, was written by Victor A. Doyno, an academic specialist of the prominent American writer and past-president of the Mark Twain's Circle of America, whose members are Twain enthusiasts. Through genetic criticism,...
The Ten Oxherding Pictures
Dissertation - 19 pages - Philosophy
The 'Ten Oxherding Pictures' are also known as jugyuzu and are the creation of 12th century Kakuan Shion Zenji, a Buddhist priest who lived on Mount Ryozan in China during the end of the Northern Sung Dynasty (1126-1279 AD). He taught that all beings are fundamentally endowed with...
The Earth as our Blanket: The Struggle for Human Importance, as described by Annie Dillard in 'For the Time Being' and Karen Armstrong in 'The Case for God'
Book review - 3 pages - Philosophy
Humans are neither individually special nor even so collectively supreme as we have lately been purporting to be. This is what Amy Dillard, in 'For the Time Being' and Karen Armstrong, in 'The Case For God', operating on the framework that God is unexplainable, focus on the human...
The Order of the Eastern Star: A Vehicle for environmental Good?
Essay - 9 pages - Philosophy
The Order of the Eastern Star is not, technically, a religion (or, at least, its followers refuse to designate it as such). In the words of the present day Grand Secretary, it is “not intended to replace a religion,” but to complement one. The Order is a fraternal organization that...
Why I'm More Important than You Are: A Case for Agent-Centered Prerogatives
Dissertation - 35 pages - Philosophy
We are acting permissibly when we do things like go to the movies once a year, or even once a month. Most of us would find it ridiculous if we were told we actually were not permitted to do these things. I consider anyone who disagrees with this claim to be outside of the accepted norms of...
The Problem with the 'Grue Problem'
Book review - 5 pages - Philosophy
Nelson Goodman, in his book 'Fact, Fiction and Forecast', presents a well known problem he calls “The New Riddle of Induction.” It seeks to criticize a basic kind of inductive reasoning most notably characterized by the phrase “all emeralds are green.” Goodman wants...
Thomas Nagel on death
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
Let us assume for the time being that you believe cake to be a good, and find cake-eating emphatically positive. Now imagine that one day, when you go to your local bakery to eat your daily serving of cake, you find that cake no longer exists. They are out of cake indefinitely, they tell you,...
The Civic Education of "My Own Life"
Text commentary - 1 pages - Philosophy
Ryan Hanley described the popularization of public moralism by David Hume through Hume's autobiography entitled My Own Life. Like Benjamin Franklin his model, the 18th century philosopher aimed at simultaneously displaying a model of civic education and illustrating himself as such. Hanley,...
Pride and Prejudice. Cinema vs Literature
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
A comparative study of the opening scene of Pride and Prejudice; based on the book published in 1873 and the film released in 2005. A visual presentation of a literary work such as Pride and Prejudice and especially the opening scene may lead the audience to read the novel and introduce the...
Hume, David, "A Character of Sir Robert Walpole"
Text commentary - 1 pages - Philosophy
David Hume portrayed Sir Robert Walpole, a Liberal considered as the first British Prime Minister. In the form of an essay entitled "A Character of Sir Robert Walpole", the 13-line -description was published in January 1742 when Walpole resigned the following month. "A Character of Sir Robert...
""Like Socrates": Pope's Art of Dying"
Text commentary - 1 pages - Philosophy
Morris Brownell explained the nature and significance of Alexander Pope's death in order to exemplify the 18th century art of dying. Pope imitated Socrates's way of dying,[...] sanctioned by Pope's Catholic mentor, Erasmus,and acknowledged by all his friends [...] Pope's act of...
The History of the Decline and Fall of
Text commentary - 1 pages - Philosophy
J.G.A. Pocock analysed The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, a six volume work written by the English historian Edward Gibbon, as an echo to the world view of theLate Enlightenment. Pocock, J.G.A., "Gibbon's Decline and Fall and the World View of the Late Enlightenment",...
Rose, Mark, "The Question of Literary Property"
Essay - 1 pages - Philosophy
In the 18th century, Mark Rose questioned the relationship between origination and ownership of a literary work. He presented the genesis of the legal existence of proprietorship in literature: copyright; and by doing so, he endeavoured to define the constitution of a literary work. "The...
Sample Statement of Purpose - For a Philosopher
Course material - 2 pages - Philosophy
I haven't always wanted to be a philosopher. In fact, I've wanted to be many other things: a writer, a psychologist, an artist, perhaps even a scientist or doctor. As a child, I grew up imagining the things I wanted to be, but never what I wanted to do. "You can be anything you want to...
'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison: A comment
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
'Invisible Man' by Ralph Ellison is a novel detailing an unnamed African-American's journey from the south to the streets of Harlem. The reader sees the main character attempt to find his place within the world, as well as within himself. In this novel written in 1947, there exists a...
The Writer and Nietzsche
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Throughout both 'The Birth of Tragedy' and 'The Genealogy of Morals', Friedrich Nietzsche explains the role and power of the artist. The artist, in particular, the writer, is a creator of illusions. Due to the increase in electronics and technology in the modern area, illusions...
Waiting for a Miracle: Waiting and its many forms portrayed in 'Largo Desolato', 'The Polish Complex', and, 'Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light'
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
“The typically human act of trying to see oneself is always fascinating, agonizing, comical, for we can never turn fast enough to see all sides at once in the mirror. And the greatest trick remains seeing how we see” ('The Polish Complex' Intro, page V). Throughout 'The...
Themes throughout 'The Wasteland'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Within 'The Wasteland' by T.S Eliot, there exists a vast array of literary elements used to turn this poem into something more than just a jumble of mixed up phrases and quotes. While this jumble builds the poem, it also makes it hard to identify a single meaning or purpose that lingers...
Why we need the system: Hobbes, Locke, and 'State of Nature'
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Thomas Hobbes and John Locke have each compiled an elaborate explanation of society, as they believe it ought to be. Hobbes in 'Leviathan' and Locke in 'Second Treatise of Government', have recorded their differing interpretations of the state of nature, the logic behind...
