Study Like a Boss
On reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and Don Quixote by Kathy Acker, there seem to be quite a few similarities in themes and characters contained in these texts, the most prevalent of which seems to be of love and language as a path to freedom. We see in Acker’s Don Quixote the abortion she must … Read more
When Homer wove the characters of The Odyssey into a story, he undoubtedly left room for interpretation of their actions. The characters, most of whom are dynamic, colorful, and three dimensional, are used by Homer to give a fun but truthful commentary on the Ancient Greeks and their way of life. The actions of one … Read more
The theme of The Odyssey is one of homecoming and reunion with loved ones. Though the proem of the epic states that Odysseus own purpose is simply the fight to save his own life and return his shipmates home safely, the gods of Olympus are the unknown captains of this journey. It is an epic … Read more
Winesburg, Ohio is a compilation of short tales written by Sherwood Anderson and published as a whole in 1919. The short tales formulate the common themes for the novel as follows: isolation and loneliness, discovery, inhibition, and cultural failure. In order to examine these themes, Anderson’s history must be understood and examined to provide illumination … Read more
Sara Orne Jewett, a local colorist from Maine, once suggested that Willa Cather write from her own background. Cather followed that advice and became famous for her stories of the American frontier; especially those about heroic women who struggled to tame the prairies of Nebraska and the Southwest. Cather’s first novel was published in 1912 … Read more
In William Shakespeare’s Othello the Theme of Love is very important. The main themes conveyed are: Love can be used against you/ love can be manipulated, and love is blinding (unconditional love). The theme of love can be used against you is best shown in Othello and Desdemona, Cassio and Bianca, Roderigo and Desdemona, and … Read more
Although she lived a seemingly secluded life, Emily Dickinsons many encounters with death influenced many of her poems and letters. Perhaps one of the most ground breaking and inventive poets in American history, Dickinson has become as well known for her bizarre and eccentric life as for her incredible poems and letters. Numbering over 1,700, … Read more
Nathaniel Hawthorne was a truly outstanding author. His detailed descriptions and imagery will surely keep people interested in reading The Scarlet Letter for years to come. In writing this book he used themes evident throughout the entirety of the novel. These themes are illustrated in what happens to the characters and how they react. By … Read more
The Grapes of Wrath is a novel by John Steinbeck that exposes the desperate conditions under which the migratory farm families of America during the 1930’s live under. The novel tells of one families migration west to California through the great economic depression of the 1930’s. The Joad family had to abandon their home and … Read more
When Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte, first appeared in 1847, it was thought to be obscene and crude (Chase 19). To the common person, it was shocking and offensive, and it did not gain popularity until long after it was first published. When the piece of literature became widely read and discussed, however, Bronte was … Read more
Adultery, betrayal, promiscuity, subterfuge, and intrigue, all of which would make an excellent coming attraction on the Hollywood scene and probably a pretty good book. Add Puritan ideals and writing styles, making it long, drawn out, tedious, wearisome, sleep inducing, insipidly asinine, and the end result is The Scarlet Letter. Despite all these things it … Read more
Lots of times people get love and lust confused. In Shakespeares Othello, the characters in this book are very confused about the difference and it results in perplexity, confusion, commotion and death. This is shown in Shakespeares use of symbolism, characterization and irony. The person who best illustrates this theme is Roderigo. He tells Iago, … Read more
Likely the most influential writer in all of English literature and certainly the most important playwright of the English Renaissance, William Shakespeare was born in 1564 in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire, England. The son of a successful middle-class glove-maker, Shakespeare attended grammar school, but his formal education proceeded no further. In 1582, he … Read more
Essay Topics for The Crucible Consider some of the authority figures in the play –Danforth, Parris, and Proctor. What traits, events, or characters motivate their attitudes and responses toward the witch trials? How do their views in regards to law and order differ from one another? Additionally, what can be said about Kohlberg’s moral stages … Read more
In Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, Janie Crawford goes on a journey of self-discovery. What does she learn or achieve or fail to learn or fail to achieve on this journey? How do the stylistic devices or choices Hurston makes help the reader better understand Janie’s journey? Establish a central theme … Read more
There are many different themes expressed in Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. They vary with each reader but basically never change. These themes deal with the education that each character posses, the relationships formed or not formed in the novel, and the responsibility for ones own actions. This novel even with the age still has ideas that … Read more
On reading Beloved by Toni Morrison and Don Quixote by Kathy Acker, there seem to be quite a few similarities in themes and characters contained in these texts, the most prevalent of which seems to be of love and language as a path to freedom. We see in Acker’s Don Quixote the abortion she must … Read more
In Steinbeck’s novel, The Grapes of Wrath, Ma Joad and Rose of Sharon graphically portray the themes of strength and sacrifice. They are universal characters, the people who make up the fabric of society in every nation. Through them we understand the need for unity and we feel the desperation of the billions of laborers … Read more
One of A Doll’s House’s central theme is secession from society. It is demonstrated by several of its characters breaking away from the social standards of their time and acting on their own terms. No one character demonstrates this better than Nora. During the time in which the play took place society frowned upon women … Read more
In J. D. Salingers novel The Catcher in the Rye, the main character, Holden Caulfield, muses at one point on the possibility of escaping from the world of confusion and phonies while George Bernard Shaws main character of Pygmalion, Eliza Dolittle, struggles to become a phony. The possible reason for this is that they both … Read more
“The Glass Menagerie” is set in the apartment of the Wingfield family. By description, it is a cramped, dingy place, not unlike a jail cell. It is one of many such apartments in the neighborhood. Of the Wingfield family members, none of them want to live there. Poverty is what traps them in their humble … Read more
The subject matter of the “Republic” is the nature of justice and its relation to human existence. Book I of the “republic” contains a critical examination of the nature and virtue of justice. Socrates engages in a dialectic with Thrasymachus, Polemarchus, and Cephalus, a method which leads to the asking and answering of questions which … Read more
The Anglo-Saxons were the members of the Germanic peoples who invaded England, and were there at the time of the Norman Conquest. They were people of their own time, language and culture. In the Anglo-Saxon adventure filled tale of Beowulf, the heron Beowulf was, at the time, considered the modern day superman. His character exemplifies … Read more
One of A Doll’s House’s central theme is secession from society. It is demonstrated by several of its characters breaking away from the social standards of their time and acting on their own terms. No one character demonstrates this better than Nora. During the time in which the play took place society frowned upon women … Read more
Abuse that begins during early childhood is very detrimental to the one being abused. The child is just beginning to learn who they are as a person. Children who are abused or made fun of often feel that they are unworthy and have little or no power and that the bullies are superior and have … Read more
Reoccurring Themes and Symbols in Different Works by Nathaniel Hawthorne It is no secret that Nathaniel Hawthornes The Ministers Black Veil is a parable. Hawthorne intended it as such and even gave the story the subtitle a parable. The Ministers Black Veil, however, was not Hawthornes only parable. Hawthorne often used symbols and figurative language … Read more
A major theme of J. D. Salingers novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is turning your back on the world is not good. The teenage boy Holden Caulfield demonstrates this theme in the story with the constant negativity he receives as result of his negative attitude. When someone turns their back on the world the … Read more
Throughout Thomas Stearns Eliot’s poems run Christian themes and values that evoke a critical view of society. Though he published relatively little compared to other poets of his caliber, he has been recognized as both a poet and a critic. He himself has been criticized for “unnecessary obscurity” and for “authorian severity” (Bradley, 1163). Throughout … Read more
The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf is the most important work of Old English literature, and is well deserved of the distinction. The epic tells the story of a hero, a Scandinavian prince named Beowulf, who rids the Danes of the monster Grendel, a descendent of Cain, and of his exploits fighting Grendel’s mother and a Dragon. … Read more
The creation of borders and boundaries has been around since the beginning of civilization. The division of property and possessions among individuals establishes a sense of self-worth. The erection of fences and walls keeps property separate. Walls also serve as a means of separating worlds. Modern society demands the creation, and maintenance of these boundaries. … Read more
Classic novels usually share in the aspect of universal themes which touch people through out the ages. All types of audiences can relate to and understand these underlying ideas. Victorian novels such as Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native and Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations are examples of literary classics that have universal themes. Hardy’s … Read more
All media forms, be they written or audio-visual reflect ideologies and themes of the era in which they are produced. 19th century Russian Literature similarly presents a pattern of themes and ideologies, relative to the social circumstances surrounding their creation. Many themes running through the Russian literature of this period parallels with the social change … Read more
One of the main themes in The Scarlet Letter is that of the secret. The plot of the book is centered around Hester Prynne’s secret sin of adultery. Nathaniel Hawthorne draws striking parallelism between secrets held and the physical and mental states of those who hold them. The Scarlet Letter demonstrates that a secret or … Read more
In Homer’s Iliad, war is depicted as horrible, bloody, and fruitless. There are no clear winners in The Iliad. Many people die in vain because of arrogant and emotional decisions made by men. Achilles directly causes the death of his friend by first refusing to fight, leaving the Greeks at a disadvantage, and then poorly … Read more
The main theme for Antigone is that people sometimes have to learn the hard way from their mistakes. This theme is expressed in the final four lines of the play. They read, There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; No wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, And … Read more
The theme of this novel is not a complicated one. The author is trying to show how a family can rise from poverty to a position of wealth. However, the rise in itself is not the crucial element; the background against which this rise takes place is more important. Wang Lung lives in an era … Read more
Overpopulation is becoming one of the most preeminent problems facing human civilization. This complicated, pervasive issue will come to be a problem of the utmost importance for people of all races, religions, and nationalities. Our planet now provides for approximately 5. 8 billion people, with projections of around 10 billion by the year 2050. Two … Read more
In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, women of the Ibo tribe are terribly mistreated, and viewed as weak and receive little or no respect outside of their role as a mother. Tradition dictates their role in life. These women are courageous and obedient. These women are nurturers above all and they are anything but … Read more
When one thinks of St. Sernin and Notre Dame, one tends to think of two beautiful cathedrals, not to churches that portray two totally different styles of architecture. Those two styles are, of course, Romanesque in St. Sernin and the Gothic style of Notre Dame. Some characteristics that these two buildings share include quest for … Read more
The two Romantic themes that I have chosen are the nostalgia for the past and the importance of an individuals emotions. Emily Bronte uses these two to strengthen the story of Wuthering Heights, especially the second. In my opinion these are two very important techniques to Ms. Bronte. Without these two themes the story would … Read more
The overriding theme of the play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare deals with the nature of love. Though true love seems to be held up as an ideal, false love is mostly what we are shown. Underneath his frantic comedy, Shakespeare seems to be asking the questions all lovers ask in the midst … Read more
In the course Y2k and The End of The World, we’ve studied apocalyptic themes, eschatology, and for some, teleology. Apocalypse, which is to unveil or reveal, eschatology, which is a concept of the end, and teleology, the end or purpose to which we are drawn, are all themes used in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. … Read more
In parting with traditional poetic formalities, Walt Whitman alleviated a burden that impeded his ability to achieve full poetic expression. To Whitman, the strict boundaries that formal meter, structure, and rhyme imposed set limits on his stylistic freedom. This is not to say that these limits prevented Whitman from conveying his themes. Rather, they presented … Read more
There are three major themes in Hemingways A Farewell to Arms. The first themeis enduring love ended only by mortality. The second, the effects of war on a mans ideals and morals, things which people can and do believe during war. The last and most important theme is Frederic Henrys disillusionment. Hemingway shows that love … Read more
In the novel, My Antonia, by Willa Cather, everyone seems to be trying to pursue the American Dream. While they all have different ideas of just exactly what the American Dream is, they all know precisely what they want. For some, the American Dream sounds so enticing that they have traveled across the world to … Read more
In ethics, intimate and deep feelings, a special kind of consciousness, mental state and actions that are directed at another person, society, etc. are associated with the concept of love. The complexity and importance of love are dictated by the fact that it is focused in an organic compound physiological and spiritual, individual and social, … Read more
In the Renaissance, the theme of love flourished in an atmosphere of general, keen interest in everything earthly and human, freeing itself from the control of the church. “Love” returned to itself the status of a vital philosophical category, which it had in antiquity with Empedocles and Plato and which in the Middle Ages was … Read more
