Success and its pressures as depicted in The Great Gatsby and Things Fall Apart
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Analysis of today's society reveals a deep-rooted desire for success. Indeed, it is human nature to strive to achieve, and it is encouraged to the point where ambition and competition become a way of living. For some, this translates into a life of blind devotion to a cause that is increasingly...
John Marshall and Mercy Otis Warren
Thesis - 12 pages - Literature
Though John Marshall and Mercy Otis Warren shared little ideological ground when it came to politics, they did come together in their respective revolutionary histories to condemn the treason of Benedict Arnold. During the war, the treason stirred up a good deal of emotionalism; the United...
Allegorical styles of writing
Thesis - 18 pages - Literature
Imagine you are standing at the edge of a rift. On this side of the rift lie life, reality, and the simplicity of the literary tale. On the other side of the rift is a world of mystery and ideals where morals and greater meanings are waiting to be discovered. Strung across the rift are a series...
A review of The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom
Book review - 3 pages - Literature
In “The Closing of the American Mind”, Allan Bloom argued about what he believes is the failure of contemporary American universities and colleges. The very first thing he mentioned in his book was that “almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes,...
Discussion on Descartes' meditations
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Descartes comes to the conclusion “that the mere fact that I [Descartes] exist and have within me an idea of a most perfect being, that is, God, provides a very clear proof that God exists” (Descartes 51). He comes to this conclusion through a series of steps. First, Descartes believes...
Origin of oneness: A model of the mystical experience
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
The purpose of this essay is to both connect and clarify the concept of Oneness present in most every spiritual tradition's mystical realm. Certainly such traditions as Buddhism and Taoism tell, in detail, of a transcendental reality that permeates throughout “all the myriad things.”...
Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger's importance in the Harry Potter series
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Many different events and characters contributed to the success which Harry achieved during the entire seven-book series in his goal of defeating Lord Voldemort, and saving the wizarding world from the despair it was experiencing. The one thing which helped him the most throughout the series were...
Saul Williams
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Sometimes it is by sheer coincidence that things are discovered. This chance is sometimes called serendipity, fate, luck, providence and many other words. Christopher Columbus was looking for a new way to get to India in 1492, and he accidentally wound up landing in The Americas. It was another...
Francesco Petrarca
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Francesco Petrarca, more commonly known as Petrarch, was an Italian man who wrote poetry in the 14th century. He was born in Arezzo, a town in central Italy, but did not spend much time there. During his childhood, his family followed the pope in a literal fashion, moving from Arezzo to Avignon...
Aristotle's Philosophy of Natural Change
Thesis - 3 pages - Philosophy
Aristotle was born into a privileged family because his father was the “personal physician to the Macedonian king, Amyntas II.” (Lindberg 45) Since they were always around royalty and high-status people, Aristotle entered into Plato's Academy in Athens when he was seventeen and stayed...
Syncretism and identity: Finding I - Thou in historical dialogue
Thesis - 12 pages - Philosophy
Identity is fundamental to the distinction between faiths and cultures. Proper respect in dialogue hinges on a relational flow in dialogue. Power struggles and anxiety over engagement with the unknown other has caused dialogue to exist as an I-it relationship where the other becomes objectified....
Number symbolism in the Bible and early Christian works
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
For those who were trained in the art of interpreting them, the numbers themselves had special meanings. The result was that people in antiquity could talk to each other in a code language, that only those initiated into the symbolism of numbers could understand. Unless we understand this code,...
Religious and personal development in freemasonry - published: 22/06/2009
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
Freemasonry started in the 16th century as an organization for spiritual and personal development for free thinkers. At a time when whole new conceptions of the world were opening up, some people wanted to explore new realms of personal evolution. Freemasonry provided a place for such people to...
Mimetic rivalry in 'Envy' and 'Safe conduct'
Thesis - 8 pages - Literature
Mimetic desire is the desire of an object, not because of a rational choice to fulfill one's own needs, but instead because that object fulfills the needs of a rival subject. It is meta-desire, desire of someone else's desire. Mimetic desire develops out of an attempt to imitate the rival...
J.M.W. Turner: Incendiary change
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
The late eighteenth century through the first half of the nineteenth century witnessed vast transformations in Europe, as the notions of a voice for every citizen and the power of the common people became powerful stimuli for change. Although the move away from unchecked monarchical power was...
Evil: Destroying from within
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
American literature in the nineteenth century was a journey in exploration of previously hidden aspects of the human psyche and this involved surpassing the boundaries of regular fiction to mystery and fantasy. Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe were pioneers in the subgenre of dark...
Hobbes's account of religion/nationalism and terror management theory
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Throughout Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes makes repeated reference to the primacy of human consciousness in provoking individuals to subject themselves to the rule of a sovereign. Specifically, the ability to conceptualize oneself as a discrete entity with a past and (imaginable) future, combined with...
The hobbesian state of nature: A prisoner's dilemma?
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
In his 1651 work Leviathan, English philosopher Thomas Hobbes argues in favor of a societal structure in which individuals must waive a portion of their natural rights to an ?artificial man? in order to avoid battling with each other. Most famously, Hobbes declared that this condition of war was...
Aristotle's teleology and the doctrine of the four causes
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
In Aristotle's Physics, he presents his teleological theory of nature as comprised of changing materials which are to be understood in terms of the factors that brought them about, particularly their final causes (i.e. the function that they ultimately exist to serve). In his view, wisdom is...
Dialectical inquiry and the divided line
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
In Republic, Plato (using Socrates as a literary mouthpiece) examines the nature of justice and describes the ideal city as being ruled by philosopher-kings. In Books VI and VII, the philosophers engage in a discussion of the qualities of true philosophers and the process through which these...
Sufficient to have stood: Temptation in Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained and Perelandra
Thesis - 7 pages - Literature
Original sin has a curious, irresolute connection to human freedom. God?s fundamental gifts to His children?reason, imagination, free will?are the very things that give men the desire to sin as well as the ability to resist. This combination makes the Fall of Man a paradoxical event, one that...
Pay a ticket, value life: Theories of drama in our town
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
Thorton Wilder's Our Town remains a classic work of existential ideas and American theater because of its universality. While the play does take place specifically in Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, this specific small-town life is a metaphor not even for our own towns; rather, Thorton Wilder's...
The decay of magic: Karen Tei Yamashita's postmodern fable
Thesis - 6 pages - Philosophy
In her satirical, surreal debut novel Through the Arc of the Rainforest, Karen Tei Yamashita asks us to believe in magic. She puts forth five original miracles at the beginning of the story: a lucky man named Kazumasa who happens to have a sentient ball floating around his head; feathers that can...
A review of Tom Perrotta's The Abstinence Teacher
Book review - 11 pages - Literature
Tom Perrotta, the reigning bard of American suburbia, can inspire compassion for the most unlikely of subjects. In Election, he humanizes heartless, bitchy Tracy; in Little Children, he measures out kindnesses to Larry the violent racist as well as Ronald the convicted sex offender. But in his...
Fitzgerald and Borges: The desire for the absolute
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
F. Scott Fitzgerald?s The Great Gatsby and Jorge Luis Borges?s ?El Aleph? can be said to share a structural framework or paradigm which takes the form of a paradox. This paradox concerns the fact that desire is at once finite, because it becomes substantialized in an object, and infinite, because...
Historical analysis of the Shakers
Thesis - 8 pages - Philosophy
The early Shaker belief system rested on an understanding that Christ's second coming had arrived. The founder of the sect, Mother Ann Lee, experienced a mystic vision of Christ while imprisoned. This vision was of the Christ and his church on earth. The early Shakers believed Ann Lee was the...
Construction and development of anthropology
Thesis - 10 pages - Philosophy
Often times, especially in ideological disciplines, there is a great gap between theory and practice. Not all theories apply to lived experiences and not all lived experiences can be summarized in theories. Nevertheless, this paper seeks to construct an ideal relationship between anthropological...
Phallocracy in Alan Moore's "From Hell"
Book review - 8 pages - Literature
Alan Moore offers a diagnosis of reality that portrays misogyny, homophobia, racism, classism, and governmental tyranny as demonic forces. Moore uses the graphic narrative medium as a means to communicate the demonic nature of these systems of power. In Moore's work on Swamp Thing, he created...
The anti-apocalyptic Markan community
Dissertation - 7 pages - Philosophy
Apocalyptic literature often is ignored when constructing theology and ethics. Theologians and ethicists ignore scriptural images of otherworldly beasts and supernatural beings. Prophesy of cosmic suffering and references to apocalyptic literature are not calculated in the work of most...
Imagination and Self-Transformation in Puig's El beso del la mujer araña
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
One of the first things to strike a reader of Mañuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña is its narrative, or rather, textual structure. The novel is composed of numerous different discourses, including film narrations, footnotes, surveillance evidence, dialogue, subjective thoughts, etc. Most of...
