Study Like a Boss
Beowulf is an epic poem, which takes place in ancient Denmark and Geatland and describes the adventures of Beowulf, a Geat hero. Through their heroes, epic poems usually describe the traditions and beliefs of a certain culture. An Anglo-Saxon author wrote Beowulf about the Danes and Geats. The Anglo-Saxons had similar beliefs to that of … Read more
Throughout the Mark Twain (a. k. a. Samuel Clemens) novel, The Adventures of HuckleBerry Finn, a plain and striking point of view is expressed by the author. His point of view is that of a cynic; he looks upon civilized man as a merciless, cowardly, hypocritical savage, without want of change, nor ability to effect … Read more
The amount of change people go through in their lives is remarkable. One day, you can be a devious criminal, while the next you could turn a new leaf and become a saint. The change that Jack goes through in All the King’s Men, is comparable to that of the patient who receives a lobotomy. … Read more
In the poem “After Apple-Picking”, Robert Frost has cleverly disguised many symbols and allusions to enhance the meaning of the poem. One must understand the parallel to understand the central theme of the poem. The apple mentioned in the poem could be connected to the forbidden fruit from the Garden of Eden. It essentially is … Read more
In The Invisible Man, H. G. Wells both demonstrates and criticizes mans tendency to become moral or immoral with the acquirement of power. Like many books of the same era, he uses science as the instrument of retribution for the social crimes that have been committed. Through invisibility, the Invisible Man gains triumph over science … Read more
A perfect pair, almost the same. Macbeth and his Lady stood witty and strong. Their two faces of innocence were an immaculate cover-up for their cruel intentions. A nightmare alone, Macbeth realizes what he has committed. A little help from Lady sent his poor soul into the darkness of evil, for she has a heart … Read more
Billy Budd is a classical tragedy novel. In this novel, one theme might be the corruption of innocence by society, but another might be the consummate peacemaker who brings about unity of man through martyrdom. The narrator never actually says his name, but tells how Billy was accused of mutiny and kills Captain Claggart. In … Read more
The character Malvolio (meaning literally I mean ill will) is immediately affected by the implications of his name. His personage is implied directly to be one of negative and somewhat disagreeable nature, which is continued and supported throughout the play, leading to his downfall and mockery which both initially seem to be thoroughly deserved, due … Read more
The story takes place in the Puritan village of Boston, Massachusetts, during the first half of the 17th Century. Several years before the novel begins, Hester Prynne came to the New World to await the arrival of her husband who had business to conclude in Europe. However, Hester’s husband was captured by Indians upon his … Read more
Detail of an elderly Negro womans journey from deep in the country to town, the while on mission of love. Phoenix Jackson, an elderly Negro women who is frail, old and has many handicaps, she lived during trying times and because of her race, faced many challenges while growing up, Eudora Welty brings the story, … Read more
Advancements in science throughout this century have led to tremendous advancements in industry. Advancements in industry, however, have not always led to advancements in living. For some, society has created mass wealth. For most mass society has created a standard of living unparalled throughout histort. For Willy Loman, however, mass society has created only tremendous … Read more
Oedipus the King is a great play whose qualities of inscrutability and of pervasive ironically quickly come to complicate any critical discussion(). Sophocles play Oedipus the King fits into a tragedy because it recounts the events in the life of Oedipus Rex, arouses pity and fear in the audience, and ends in an unhappy catastrophe … Read more
Thomas Sterns Eliot wrote the poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” over a period of six years and published it circa 1917 at the ripe old age of twenty-nine. As his first published poem, ‘Prufrock’ revealed Eliot’s original and highly developed style. Its startling jumps from rhetorical language to clich, its indirect literary … Read more
Throughout history man has always had a vivid imagination. In prehistoric times, old man used to write stories, tales and such upon their cave dwelling walls. These were performed through the use of symbols. These symbols, called hieroglyphics, portrayed the thoughts and creativity of their authors. Boszhardt once said while talking about the cave pictures … Read more
Swifts Gullivers Travels is without question the most famous literature to emerge from this 18th century Tory satiric tradition. It is the strongest, funniest, and yet in some ways most despairing cry for a halt to the trends initiated by seventeenth-century philosophy. In Book IV, we discover how Gullivers journey into a discovery of what … Read more
Setting plays a major role in Goodman Brown’s journey to losing his faith. It gives a strong foundation to cause him to doubt what he has always believed in. Once he leaves his wife at the beginning of the story, he goes into a dark and scary forest at night. No normal human being would … Read more
In the novel Their Eyes were watching God Zora Neale Hurston portrays a woman named Janie’s search for love and freedom. Janie, throughout the novel, bounces through three different marriages, with a brief stint at being a widow in between. Throughout these episodes, Hurston uses Janie’s clothing as a visual bookmark of where Janie is … Read more
Romeo and Juliet is one of Shakespeare’s plays about tragedy. It is about two lovers who commit suicide when their feuding famillies prevent them from being together. The play has many characters, each with its own role in keeping the plot line. Some characters have very little to do with the plot but some have … Read more
Philip K. Dick has written over fifty novels, and is considered among some of the greatest experimental writers of the 1950s and ’60s, such as; William Burroughs, J. G. Ballard, and Thomas Pynchon. (Star 34) He has written science- fiction and regular fiction. His fiction usually spoke of people trying to figure out who they … Read more
Faulkner’s Light in August is a metaphor. In fact it is many metaphors, almost infinitely many. It is a jumble of allusions, themes, portraits, all of them uniquely important, many of them totally unrelated. In fact no 20th century writer has even approached the sheer quantity of symbolism Faulkner packed into every page, with, perhaps, … Read more
“But a lie is never good, even though death threatens on the other side” (The Scarlet Letter). Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, is a story that illustrates intricate pieces of the Puritan lifestyle. Lying of course was considered a tremendous sin in the eyes of the Puritans. Centered first on a sin committed by Hester … Read more
The word could mean “a silly person”, or “one who professionally counterfeits folly for the entertainment of others, a jester, clown” or “one who has little or no reason or intellect” or “one who is made to appear to be a fool” (word originated from North Frisian). In english literature, the two main ways which … Read more
The representations and interplay of types of power: In Shakespeares famous play Antony and Cleopatra, the powerful are portrayed including their personalities, their reactions to other powerful figures and the interplay of these powers as the characters interact. Antonys Power: Shakespeare uses Rome and Egypt as binary opposites not just to reflect qualities inherent in … Read more
In The Metamorphosis Gregor Samsa is forced to deal with his transformation from a human being into an insect. After his transformation Gregor is no longer able to do everyday ordinary things. He now has to depend on someone to do these things for him. His younger sister, Grete, makes herself responsible for Gregor. She … Read more
In F. Scott Fitzgeralds novel “The Great Gatsby”, he shows power and change through his characters. In one particular part of the book I noticed a significant change in the character Jay Gatsby. This scene proved to me that he was more “human” then everyone made him out to be. You see a side of … Read more
John Steinbeck’s “The Chrysanthemums” shows the true feelings of the main character, Elisa Allen, through the use of setting and her interactions with other characters in the story. By way of vivid descriptions, Elisa’s feelings of dissatisfaction over the lack of excitement in her life and her role as a mere housewife and then the … Read more
Because of the devastating disaster of the dust bowl, the Joad family was forced to leave their long-time home and find work and a new life elsewhere. They, like many other families, moved to California. “The land of milk and honey”. The people in the dust bowl imagined California as a haven of jobs where … Read more
Huckleberry Finn is a book that contains elements of romantic and realistic fiction; even though it contains both these elements, it is a book on realistic fiction, and that is how it was written to be. Mark Twain used historical facts and data to make this story realistic, it used situations that would normally happen … Read more
The Flood Stories The amazing stories of the great flood that are described in, The Epic of Gilgamesh which is translated by N. K. Sandars and The Story of the Flood which is the King James version, both stories similarly. Many of the events of each story are very similar in ways and very different … Read more
Frankenstein and Society Society is inevitable. It will always be there as a pleasure and a burden. Society puts labels on everything as good or bad, rich or poor, normal or aberrant. Although some of these stamps are accurate, most of them are misconceptions. In the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley this act of erring … Read more
The story of Barn Burning was first published in the June of 1939 in the Harper’s Magazine and later awarded the O. Henry Memorial Award for the best short story of the year. (Byne) The author, William Faulkner, was one of America’s most innovative novelists. (gatewayno) The way he describes the smells, sites and sounds … Read more
The novel is divided into three sections narrated by three different Native American women: Rayona, Christine, and Ida. Rayona’s narrative begins at the hospital, where she is playing cards with her mother, Christine, who drinks heavily and is frequently hospitalized. Rayona’s father, Elgin, arrives and argues with Christine. Rayona leaves for the parking lot and … Read more
Sophocles is perhaps one of the greatest tragedians ever. Sophocles said that a man should never consider himself fortunate unless he can look back on his life and remember that life without pain. For Oedipus Rex, looking back is impossible to do without pain. This pain stems from his prideful life. Oedipus is aware that … Read more
The truth that ambition and desire for material objects does not always satisfy the soul is a major theme depicted in Christopher Marlowes Doctor Faustus. The poem on page 93, lines 96-113 is the essence of this theme. It describes Faustus meeting, what he believes, is the icon of perfection. This perfection is a mere … Read more
Antonio, a Venetian merchant, complains of melancholy; his friend Bassanio asks for a loan to travel to Belmont to court the beautiful heiress, Portia. Antonio agrees, but says that he must borrow the money from one of the city’s moneylenders because all of his ships are at sea. At Belmont, Portia is also melancholy because, … Read more
the people of Thebes, but she was not concerned with the laws that mortals had made. Antigone saw the divine laws of the gods to be much more important than those of mortals. She felt that if she died while upholding the laws of the gods, that her afterlife would be better than if she … Read more
A hero is someone that helps others no matter what the situation. There are many qualities that a hero must posses such as bravery, courage, strength, intelligence and honor. These qualities alone are not enough to make a hero. They must also be pure at heart, fight for the good of mankind and only fight … Read more
The Romantic sonnet holds in its topics the ideals of the time period, concentrating on emotion, nature, and the expression of “nothing. ” The Romantic era was one that focused on the commonality of humankind and, while using emotion and nature, the poets and their works shed light on people’s universal natures. In Charlotte Smith’s … Read more
Within freedom should come security. Within security should come freedom. But in Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, it seems as though there is no in between. Atwood searches throughout the novel for a medium between the two, but in my eyes fails to give justice to a womans body image. Today’s society has created a … Read more
A comparative essay on the use of symbolism in William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily. ” Authors traditionally use symbolism as a way to represent the sometimes intangible qualities of the characters, places, and events in their works. In his short story “A Rose for Emily,” William Faulkner uses symbolism to compare the Grierson house … Read more
When people accept an ideal to live by it can be a glorious and noble thing unless they become so obsessed with the the ideal that it becomes a yolk and they are unable to realize their dream. This is especially true for two characters in Arthur Miller’s plays Death of a Salesman and The … Read more
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” employs a raven itself as a symbol of the torture, mainly the self-inflicted torture, of the narrator over his lost love, Lenore. The raven, it can be argued, is possibly a figment of the imagination of the narrator, obviously distraught over the death of Lenore. The narrator claims in the … Read more
Richard II is a play of sensibility, which is unique in Elizabethan literature for two reasons; firstly it looked to the 14th century for inspiration and secondly it emphasised the importance of emotions. This switch in narrative focus makes Richard II a play, which is concerned with the exploration of personality and intrigue, as opposed … Read more
For Jake and Alfred, the male characters from Love in L. A. and M is for Moon Among Other Things, respectively, reality is far from their perception of the good life. Both men dream of living quite differently from the one they have been leading, yet neither deserve what they desire. Jake and Alfred are … Read more
In the olden days, religion and politics went hand in hand. The church either ran the land or had a strangle hold on the people. If the church thought there was one way to do something, one had to do as the church requested or suffer great penalty. To go against the church was to … Read more
John Milton divided the characters in his epic poem Paradise Lost into two sides, one side under God representing good, and the other side under Satan representing evil and sin. Milton first introduced the reader to the character Satan, the representative of all evil, and his allegiance of fallen angels that aided in his revolt … Read more
Sit and Spin: Chaucers social commentary grows from so-called “intrusion” The relationship Geoffrey Chaucer establishes between “outsiders” and “insiders” in The Canterbury Tales provides the primary fuel for the poetrys social commentary. Both tales and moments within tales describing instances of intrusion work to create a sense of proper order disturbed in the imaginary, structured … Read more
In her novel A Thousand Acres Jane Smiley takes the conflict between the natural and the unnatural in King Lear one step farther than Shakespeare. Using many of the same elements in Shakespeares tragedy, Smiley shows the deeper complexities of human relationships and experiences by expanding this theme. Shakespeares most important use of the theme … Read more
Antonio, the protagonist of the story, is extremely good friends with Bassanio. I have come up on a hypothesis that Antonio is gay and Bassanio is a bisexual. Antonio seems to like Bassanio in a romantic way. Antonio is a male. Bassanio is a male. Bassanio likes Antonio in a romantic way and also loves … Read more
Dante’s “The Hermaphroditic Joyce” One of the most powerful nuances of any writing is the dialogue within the story. In literature, it is all too often that characters live only in the jaded voice of the author and never truly develop as their own, or are not strongly opinionated in a manner which contrasts the … Read more