Dual critique: "The American Scholar" and "The Poet"
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
Emerson begins “The American Scholar” by declaring, “I accept the topic which not only usage, but the nature of our association, seem to prescribe to this day - the AMERICAN SCHOLAR” (53). These opening lines are incredibly specific; the atmosphere in which he finds himself...
Shakespeare's Shylock: A sympathetic portrait of a Jew in an anti-semitic culture
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice plays host to one of the most complex and intriguing characters of the accomplished playwright's literary canon. In the character of Shylock, Shakespeare presents a view of the Jews that is, while still negative by the standards of modern culture,...
"Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali ": A review
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
Megan Jennaway's theoretical framework in the first half of Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali, fuses feminist anthropology, Marxist power asymmetry discourse, and postmodernist concerns of representation and reflexivity. She posits that sexuality and desire have not been explored in...
Michel Foucault and his discourse on discursive history
Thesis - 4 pages - Philosophy
Michel Foucault may be one of the most influential French philosophers of our time. He spent much of his professional life as a professor, and he is best known because of his critical analysis of various social institutions; medicine and the human sciences being specific ones. He published many...
Greek and Shakespearean influences on Olivier's Hamlet
Thesis - 5 pages - Literature
Staging and adaptation is around us everywhere today, but not too many people put much thought into where the origins of our modern television, movies, and theater come from. We as the 21st century have come a long way from the beginning of theater to where we are now but not all the elements...
Human relationships in the teachings of Teresa of Avila
Thesis - 9 pages - Philosophy
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) was the founder of the cloistered Carmelite order during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. As the founder of a strict, cloistered order that emphasized poverty one might expect Teresa to have conservative views on issues like the value of human relationships. Her...
The development of Early Christianity
Thesis - 7 pages - Philosophy
Jesus lived in a time period called second temple Judaism. During the lifetime of Jesus, Judea, where Jerusalem was located, and Galilee, where Jesus lived and taught, were separate countries under Roman rule. Though dominated by Rome the Jews in those countries had a certain amount of autonomy...
Reflections of race and American culture in the 'Tom' show
Thesis - 10 pages - Literature
In Martin Scorsese's 2002 film Gangs of New York, the two main characters-Amsterdam Vallon (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Bill "the Butcher" Cutting (played by Daniel Day-Lewis)- attend a 'Tom' show (a stage adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin) in New York City. In this scene,...
The duality of Holocaust literature
Book review - 6 pages - Literature
Other than the odd revisionist, the vast majority of sentient humans will attest to the horror that was the Holocaust. Unfortunately, those who can give first hand testimonies are few in number and quickly disappearing. The story gets even more muddled when psychologists protest that memory is...
A critical analysis of William James's statement on attention
Thesis - 5 pages - Philosophy
In this essay we will critically analyze the famous philosopher, William James' views on attention. James appears to be right when he describes anyone in this condition is not paying attention. When describing attention as the mind's taking possession of an object “in clear and vivid...
Ulysses and Androgyny: Bloom as modernity's new womanly man
Thesis - 4 pages - Literature
"Is he a jew [sic] or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the hell is he?or who is he?" (Ulysses 438) asks Ned Lambert regarding the character of Leopold Bloom to the pub-dwellers at Barney Kiernan's. This appears to be a predominant question that runs through Ulysses and many...
The impact of poetry and literature on the father-son relationship in John Stuart Mill's 'Autobiography' and Edmund Gosse's 'Father and Son'
Book review - 9 pages - Literature
When comparing John Stuart Mill's Autobiography and Edmund Gosse's Father and Son, one cannot ignore the fact that the two are very similar with respect to the strong father-son relationship that both James Mill and Phillip Gosse had with their sons. Mill's and Gosse's primary influence in their...
The quotidian interrupted: The fantastic in the everyday and its familial consequences in Franz Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis';
Book review - 4 pages - Literature
"In front of this monstrous creature I refuse to pronounce my brother's name, and therefore I merely say: we have to get rid of it [emphasis mine]?All you have to do is try to shake off the idea that that's Gregor" (47), cries Grete to her father as tempers and patience flare at the end...
Italian futurism and art: Poetry, theatre, and war
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
“Erect on the summit of the world, once again we hurl our defiance to the stars!” (MASD 253), cries Marinetti in “The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism 1909”. A very passionate, yet aggressive statement which, when analyzed, serves as a very pertinent encompassment of...
Solving the human problem: Mrs. Alving, Juno Boyle and tragic motherhood
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
In Raymond Williams' Modern Tragedy, the famous scholar provides an outstanding explanation for the roles of tragic hero and tragic action in modern drama. He argues that "the ordinary tragic action is what happens through the hero" (79, italics are mine). In consequence, the modern tragic...
The Threepenny Opera and the Musical Gestus of Kurt Weill
Thesis - 7 pages - Literature
These characteristics which Salten describes seem to relate to the concept of gestus, which is a difficult word to interpret but nevertheless has become the crucial link connecting Brecht's theories of acting, playwriting and theatrical production. In epic theatre, actors become demonstrators...
"From the purpose of playing": Determining a text of Hamlet
Thesis - 14 pages - Literature
In the introduction for Hamlet in William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, Gary Taylor writes that "of all the two-text plays, Hamlet comes closest to Lear in the scale and complexity of the textual variation apparently resulting from authorial revision" (401). Indeed, Hamlet's three...
Colonial mentality in Filipino Immigrants
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
The Filipinos were among the first Asian groups to enter the U.S. Unlike other groups, they had a unique colonial history, and thereby their acculturating experiences were not the first encounter with discrimination they faced. Though they were considered nationals, they weren't citizens 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 -...
The Cherry Orchard: Chekhov's comedy Stanislavski's tragedy
Thesis - 6 pages - Literature
When Anton Chekhov began his play The Cherry Orchard in December 1902, he intended it to be a farce in four acts. Having written it during a particularly awful bout with emphysema, it took almost a year for him to send it out to Stanislavski and the Moscow Art Theatre, where it had been eagerly...
Breaking up the body: Dissecting the Baroque period
Thesis - 7 pages - Linguistics & languages
During the Baroque period, things fell apart; the center of beliefs, institutions, and truisms could no longer hold. Indeed, not even one's body was free of speculation, debate, and change; with scientific discoveries and experiments, as well as the thinkers and philosophers challenging...
Is man one or many?
Essay - 6 pages - Philosophy
This paper seeks to examine how three anthropologists, E.B. Tylor, Bronislaw Malinowski and Levi-Strauss address the question “is man one or many?” They were chosen on the basis of their being the leading figures of three different schools of thought, evolutionary anthropology,...
Witches in Popular Children's Fiction: A look at the portrayal of witches and witchcraft in select works of fiction since the 17th century
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Witches are very interesting group of people to read about. They have been at odds or different from the main-stream culture, and their practices and doings have been shrouded in secrecy and mystery, and evil-doing. For these reasons, witches make interesting characters in fictional stories, and...
Critical analysis of 'A Lesson before Dying'
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
Ernest J. Gaines wrote the novel, 'A Lesson before Dying' in which he highlighted the problems faced by the blacks during the 1940's in the South. However, the contextual time for the novel covers a whole century into until 1964. He writes about the complete devastation faced by the...
Ideological Ephemera: Why Zines will survive the internet ?
Essay - 7 pages - Literature
According to some arguments of literary analysis, Zines should have ceased to exist, or at least should be well on their way to a doomed demise, some years ago. The availability and accessibility of blogs, web journals and social networking sites ostensibly offer ample outlets for the immediate...
The novel "Charlotte Temple" as an example of a popular novel
Essay - 5 pages - Literature
The novel Charlotte Temple is an example of what I believe to be a "popular novel". Charlotte Temple's appeal was born out of its solicitous plea to a generation of women who held a particular station in society. It warned them of dangers while morally evangelizing and re-emphasizing basic...
The myth of the contented slave
Essay - 4 pages - Literature
The definition of contentment is to feel or manifest satisfaction with one's possessions, status or situation. Leslie Howard Owens holds to the opinion that the "contented slave" is a "myth". In his book, "This Species of Property" the personality and attitudes of southern slaves is shown...
An essay outlining David Chalmers 'The Matrix as Metaphysics' hypothesis
Tutorials/exercises - 7 pages - Philosophy
This essay outlines David Chalmers Matrix hypothesis. Chalmers is a consciousness researcher with interests in philosophical questions. As we shall see he regards the Matrix theory as a Metaphysical hypothesis. Chalmers neither endorses the Matrix theory nor rejects it. Rather he respects it as a...
The soul, according to Aristotle
Essay - 4 pages - Philosophy
In the work De Anima, Aristotle presents his account of the soul. He sees the soul as inexorably tied to a physical body. This is because the soul is a form, while the body is the matter that is acted upon. Inherent in this characterization of the soul is the idea that the soul is actuality while...
Myths of origin: Their role in religion and society
Essay - 5 pages - Philosophy
What is myth? For rationalists such as Muller, they provide pre-scientific explanations of natural phenomena. For functionalists such as Malinowski they are a "codification of belief", explaining rites and justifying norms. For Jung, myth provides expressions of a collective unconscious. (i.e....
