John Stuart Mill: On Liberty
Case study - 2 pages - Literature
In the first chapter of his essay On Liberty, Mill emphasizes on the importance of the civil and social grounds of liberty, as opposed to the « Liberty of the Will ». Therefore his work deals with the opposition between his concept of liberty and the needed authority of the state. At first Mill...
Consider the relationship and struggle between Urizen and Los in Blake's work
Case study - 3 pages - Literature
The recognition of the English poet's literary talent William Blake has been slow and this is to be linked with the novelty of the ideas he developed, but also with the subversive aspect of his reinterpretation of the biblical works, in order to express his views about the world around him....
Kurt Vonnegut, Billy Pilgrim and David Irving: Tralfamadorians in Training
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
Where Billy Pilgrim begins, Kurt Vonnegut ends and this is where David Irving intrudes for good measure. However this is what makes the post-modern interpretation of this book so interesting (at least to this author). Certainly, an all pervading odor of fatalism and cynicism colors the work and...
Stone of Laughter - Hoda Barakat
Case study - 6 pages - Literature
Many have undertaken the task of writing in the aftermath of the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). Among them, a few female Lebanese authors have attempted to recount their own experience of the war through fiction. The most renowned are Hanan el Sheykh with her novel Hikayat Zahra and Hoda...
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
The Epic of Gilgamesh is among the earliest of all known works literature in the world. The poem tells the story of King Gilgamesh of Uruk who is thought to have reigned around 2700 BCE. Uruk is believed by some to be the origin of the name of modern day Iraq and was located in southern...
Commentary about: The Tiger, poem by William Blake
Case study - 1 pages - Literature
This poem in verse comes from the collection Songs of experience. The poem is entitled The Tiger and it was written by William Blake in the 18th century, more precisely in 1794. This written document deals with a tiger which symbolizes all the creator's work at the time of Genesis. So, there...
Once upon a time, women in fairy tales
Case study - 15 pages - Literature
The release of Rapunzel in December 2010 tackles the issue of the female condition by re-interpreting and modernizing a classical fairy tale. In the original one, the heroine is a princess, whose hair are three-meter long, locked in doorless tower. She is victimized and passive, undergoing the...
The Dark Virgins
Case study - 2 pages - Literature
For ages now, the great Rache tribe has cursed the dwellers of Raginpoo forest. Whenever there's a commotion or a calamity in the village, they would blame the Raginpoo people right away without even knowing the truth about the said people. One day, Reug and Delash, the two sons of the wise...
Shakespeare - The tempest art and nature
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
The Tempest by William Shakespeare pursues the idea of a celebratory exploration of the nature of theatrical art. More than this, the whole play is set on a duality between art and nature, sometimes combining and sometimes contrasting each other. Art would be defined as grace, civility and...
Commentary on Libra's shooting scene
Case study - 3 pages - Literature
Libra is a novel written by Don Delillo and published in 1988. It deals with the life of Lee Harvey Oswald in parallel with the plotters of the conspiracy which led him to be charged with John Fitzgerald Kennedy's murder. This extract is the climax of the novel, the scene where the President...
The connection between Blanche DuBois and Sex
Case study - 4 pages - Literature
There is no doubt when it comes to Blanche Dubois' state of mind. On the first look she seems fragile, lost, and of course delusional. But on a further examination it becomes apparent that there is more than what meets the eye. To put it aptly, Blanche Dubois is insecure, and wants to feel needed...
Compare the presentation of the speaker in Alan Bennett's monologues 'A chip in the sugar' and 'A Lady of letters'. How does Alan Bennett guide your reactions to the characters?
Case study - 6 pages - Literature
In Bennett's monologues the characters and their attitudes have quite a lot in common. To realise these similarities and differences, it is necessary to see what we learn directly or implicitly about the main characters' lives and what they tell us about their situations. In ‘A Chip in the...
Would you agree that the main focus in Heaney's poems about childhood is the loss of innocence?
Case study - 3 pages - Literature
The Early Purges is about when a boy of about the age of 6 is frightened at the sight of kittens being drowned on a farm as he is told that they are pests. Then when he is older he just sees it as the norm and something that must be done. Death of a Naturalist is about a very young boy who...
Compare the ways in which the writers present the relationship between the colonial authority and the oppressed in the novels 'The Siege of Krishnapur' and 'True History of the Kelly Gang'
Case study - 4 pages - Literature
In their novels, both Carey and Farrell present the Colonial Authority as multi-faceted organizations. In Farrell's ‘The Siege of Krishnapur' the foremost voices of the Colonial Authority are the Collector, initially representative of the British Empire's quest for progress, and Fleury,...
Tale of Kieu
Case study - 3 pages - Literature
The notion of morality has been the focus of numerous philosophical and sociological debates. A number of experts have examined the issue, arriving to a number of different models and schemes to define morality and its influence on human behavior. One of the major figures in this field was the...
Hero myths seem to phallocentric in that all heroes are male- Who is the strongest candidate to be the heroine of Greek myth?
Case study - 3 pages - Literature
It is possible to find a wide range of both female and male heroes in Greek myth. Remarkable battles, brilliant sportsmanship, incredible physical abilities, are just some of the magnificent traits that are part of numerous ancient Greek legends. In this respect, the immense majority of the gods...
A Proppian analysis on the narrative of Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
In the 1920`s Vladimar Jakovlevic Propp, the chairperson of the Department of Folklore at Leningrad University, examined a whole series of Russian folk tales and came to the conclusion that every story contains similar themes and each theme follows a distinct pattern. From this analysis, Propp...
Ethnographies in context and as fictional representations
Case study - 9 pages - Literature
Empirical observation and objective analysis are some of the core tenets of sound scientific inquiry. These processes lead to the recording of data and presentation of findings which confirm or disprove hypotheses, thus renewing the drive for further studies. Particularly in the social sciences,...
Lyrical ballads by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge or the birth of a new literary movement during the Industrial Revolution - published: 17/05/2009
Case study - 4 pages - Literature
Industrialism, expansion, profit, production and individualism were the feelings which took place during the period of the Industrial Revolution in England. People in Great Britain were led by the streams of progress, but the modernizations in technology had some important consequences on people:...
Horace Walpole vs. Clara Reeve: The role of the Gothic
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
Gothic novels are seen as the beginning of modern horror fiction. Many devotees believed Gothic novels have inspired pleasant horror in its readers. The genre is generally accepted to have been started by Horace Walpole and his novel The Castle of Otranto. Although Walpole was an aristocrat and...
August Strindberg and scenic symbolism
Case study - 6 pages - Literature
Although Strindberg claimed not to be a symbolist through much of his career, there are a number of symbols used in his plays. Strindberg's plot and characters have symbolic value, but they are used especially in the scenery - both environmental scenery and physical scenery. To explain -...
Comparison between 'Nighthawks' by Hopper and Mystery and 'Melancholy of a Street' by de Chirico
Case study - 4 pages - Literature
The success of the Melancholy show demonstrated that existential issues are a productive source of inspiration for artists. Universal melancholy affects both painters and spectators. Hopper's Nighthawks and De Chirico's Mystery and Melancholy of a Street represent human metaphysical concern,...
Asserting women's intellectual legitimacy through coercive subtlety: An analysis of the narrative voices of Anne Bradstreet and Susanna Rowson
Case study - 6 pages - Literature
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, women in America were dominantly expected to be ethical, simple-minded, and largely uneducated members of their community. As a result, female writers would often face strong social scrutiny based on this governing gender subordination because of...
Irony in 18th century British Literature
Case study - 5 pages - Literature
Philosophers as early as Plato have made distinctions between the mind and body, or reason and material perception, resulting in a dualism of being that has seeped into all aspects of Western Civilization. The cycle of perception and judgment of exterior forms has caused an anxiety prevalent in...
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....
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 Battle of the Sexes in Ancient India
Case study - 2 pages - Literature
For time immemorial, mankind has been locked in a vicious and never-ending struggle against an enemy that is cunning, resourceful, and not above hitting below the belt; in short the one enemy that is capable of presenting a formidable challenge on every conceivable field of battle: womankind....
