Judgment and Portrayal of Character in the "Love Suicides" and "What the Seasons Brought the Almanac Maker"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The two narratives of “What the Seasons Brought the Almanac Maker” by Saikaku and the “Love Suicides” by Chikamatsu present variegated looks at the complications of love and society and the need for harmony between the two. Both are prime examples of Japanese literature, full...
Power and Sexuality in "Leda and the Swan" and "Goblin Market"
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
Duality and opposition are forces that play beneath the surface of both William Butler Yeats' “Leda and the Swan” and Christina Rossetti's “Goblin Market”, two poems that focus on sexuality while incorporating animal figures as holders of power, both sexual and otherwise....
Knowledge and certainty: limits and value
Essay - 7 pages - Philosophy
Epistemology is a philosophical discourse that is predicated upon understanding the scope, limits and value of knowledge. While one may argue that the scope and limits are quite straightforward in terms of individual understanding and knowledge, the philosophical component of epistemology clearly...
Nehru's ideas in relation to Gandhianism
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
A critical reading of Sunil Khilnani's arguments in The Idea of India appears to reflect well on the actions taken by Jawaharlal Nehru in his development of the state of India. As described by Khilnani, Nehru had a number of ideas which appear at the outset to be in violation of the principles of...
Essay on "The Boarding Hous", by James Joyce: A well-orchestrated "human comedy"
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
"The Boarding House?: This article, will study the most interesting aspects of Joyce's narrative technique in this short story. Joyce's (1882-1941) short story ?The Boarding House' was published in ?the Dubliners', a collection of stories set in the ?paralyzed' town of Dublin....
All in the Family: The Economics of Interpersonal Relationships in the Gulag
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
The synopsis on the back cover of Alexander Solzhenistyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich claims that it is “the harrowing account of one day in the life of a man who has conceded to all things evil with patience, dignity, and enduring strength.” Like so many others, the author...
Reinforcements for the Free Will Defense
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
Here I shall argue against objections raised by J.L. Mackie and Nelson Pike to the Free Will Defense. These philosophers want to know why an omnipotent and wholly good God could not create a world in which everybody acts freely and rightly. I shall show that this condition is logically...
The Epileptic Loophole: Self-control and the Judiciary in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Epilepsy and the punitive system—two seemingly unrelated items that Fyodor Dostoevsky juxtaposes in order to make a point about Russia and the futility of the judiciary. In his giant oeuvre The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky exemplifies the tension between rational and irrational behavior by...
The Crucible Character Analysis : Abigail Williams "A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing"
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In any unfavorable situation, we seek a solution and if there is none, then a way out. When one of main characters of Arthur Miller's The Crucible finds herself in a vulnerable position, she not only manages to escape her problems, but also succeeds in placing the repercussions of her actions on...
A critical review of 'A New Birth of Freedom: Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War by Harry V. Jaffa
Book review - 5 pages - Literature
A New Birth of Freedom: Lincoln and the Coming of the Civil War by Harry V. Jaffa is the long awaited sequel to the author's 1959 book, Crisis of the House Divided. Although the specific objective of the A New Birth of Freedom is to examine Lincoln's development of the Gettysburg Address, what...
The child sex trade in Asia
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
References to Asia often bring to mind the stunning beauty of the Orient. Rich cultural tradition coupled with unique design and architecture make Asia appear to be an almost mythical culture to Western citizens. While it is indeed true that Asia is associated with an exotic culture deeply...
Does race play a mitigating role in the application of the death penalty?
Essay - 2 pages - Philosophy
Over the course of the twentieth century there have been a number of issues that have promulgated debate. Prayer in public schools, gun control and abortion are among the most notable issues to garner attention. While each of these issues has significant ramifications for the development of...
"You are Defined by Those that Oppose You."
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
It is arguable that today it is commonly, if subconsciously, accepted that nationality is the most important aspect of one's identity. Whether it is a national sports team, a national representative at Eurosong, a national author…etc. one's nationality has become the most basic marker of...
Hospitable Hosts, Educated Elites: Relativism vs. Absolutism in the writings of Alberuni and Ibn Battuta
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
In exploring nations and cultures outside of their own, Alberuni and Ibn Battuta encountered ideologies, customs, and practices that stood in opposition to the beliefs and ways of life they personally upheld. Faced with foreign behavior and thought, the authors found themselves in a position to...
The "Marx Brothers":Wallerstein, Chakrabarty, and Appadurai in Conversation
Essay - 8 pages - Philosophy
The anthropological study of capitalism is rendered difficult by the inaccessibility of capitalist subjects as informants, the political legacy of Marxist and socialist movements, and the continuing disagreement over the origins and productions of capitalism, among other things. However, there...
Manifest: To Become
Essay - 3 pages - Philosophy
On the occasion of International Women's Day, I find myself wanting to write about feminism. I don't know what wave I am—4th, or maybe some unknowable iteration in the process of being born and matured. But I do know that I think a lot about what it means to be a woman wielding her power in...
Harold Pinter and the absent 'Center'
Essay - 9 pages - Literature
At the very beginning there is the structure. The structure is a skeleton, the premise, the base on which the flesh is arranged, systematically, so that a body maybe created. It may not always make itself palpable but if there is a structure then there must also be a center. A structure without a...
Nietzsche and the Mother: A Contrast to Kantian Enlightenment
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
To what extent does Nietzsche impose his ideals on the reader or create an open and flexible world-view? Upon closing his arguments in On the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche imagines a reader asking him “'What are you really doing, erecting an ideal or knocking one down?'” (95). He...
Heteroglossia and Shelly's Frankenstein
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
According to M. M. Bahktin, heteroglossia is the use of different novelistic modes of expression (authorial speech, narrators, inserted genres, speech of characters, dialogue, etc.) to express and represent the diversity of social speech types and a diversity of individual voices. Mary Shelly's...
Langston Hughes's "Trumpet Player"
Thesis - 2 pages - Literature
Langston Hughes's poem, "Trumpet Player", is both a celebration of and reach for a Black identity. The poem's vivid imagery and careful metaphors connote to a theme consistent among Hughes's work. The poem quietly speaks of oppression, of a violent past, of desperation and ongoing...
Fidelity and Infidelity (to Tolstoy's Novel) in Duvivier's and Zarkhi's Anna Kareninas
Tutorials/exercises - 15 pages - Literature
A viewer watching the 1948 and then the 1967 film versions of Anna Karenina (directed by Julien Duvivier and Aleksandr Zharkhi, respectively) for the first time might think that there is much in common between the two films. They look very similar, and this is due in large part to attempts, by...
Society Woman: Days of a Russian Noblewoman
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The memoirs of Anna Evdokimovna Labzina, a noblewoman during the reign of Catherine the Great, might be expected to contain numerous references to the salon of St. Petersburg and the fashions of the time. Titled Days of a Russian Noblewoman, her account is remarkable for its religious tone and...
Subplot and Plot: The Commentary of the Madhouse on the Castle in Middleton and Rowley's The Changeling
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
In the seventeenth-century Jacobean revenge tragedy The Changeling, Thomas Middleton and William Rowley present two seemingly separate worlds in both location and action. The main plot is characterized by the locale of the castle in Alicante, ruled by Vermandero. This setting is centered on the...
The Absent Wife and Mother as the Source for the Downfall of a Family and Kingdom in Shakespeare's King Lear
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
In King Lear, Shakespeare incorporates a theme that is prevalent in many of his other works, that of family structure, specifically, absent wives and mothers. The nonexistence of King Lear's wife and his daughters' mother also implies the absence of a Queen and a female political figure to...
The Workshop
Essay - 6 pages - Literature
Writing is not for the faint-hearted. Writers do the hard work of expelling ignorance, trying to change the way people think while taking in every chance to learn about the lives of others. The business of fiction is people, but in order to write about people, one has to understand them well....
Symbolism in "The Chrysanthemums" and "A Rose for Emily."
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
Writers employ a wide variety of devices to further enhance the nature of their works. Whether through eloquent description or profound repetition, certain aspects of an author's technique lend a stronger reflection of the theme or idea behind the simple story. The effect can be likened to an...
The Scarlet Letter : Exposition
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
America's Declaration of Independence gives all men an equal and unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness and this right cannot be usurped by any other principle unless the latter is governed by free will. However, because free will is subject to individual beliefs and happiness occurs in a...
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest : A Study of Tragic Characters Using "Cool-Hand Luke"
Tutorials/exercises - 7 pages - Literature
Arthur Miller once wrote that the reason so few tragedies exist is because the world is in lack of heroes and the common man thinks too little of himself to be otherwise. The reluctance to be anything more than ordinary is attributed to the inherent assumption that heroes can only come from...
Anne Fadiman: The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down
Essay - 3 pages - Literature
When I'm old and gray, I probably won't remember very well every book that I've read. In fact, upon recollection, the contents of each novel will most likely be condensed to a single descriptive sentence; for textbooks, a verb and noun will do (i.e. Napoleon loses). As insignificant as that...
Surveillance in England
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
In his novel, 1984, George Orwell, points out: "Big brother is watching you". He spoke about a society where each house was in surveillance and where the political parties controlled every situation. He also added, "In the past, no government had the power to maintain the citizens in a permanent...
