Texts show us how experience often changes people. ‘Rebecca’, a novel written by Daphne Du Maurier illustrates this point. Throughout the engrossing story, the characters experience much and as a result, the characters undergo both temporary and life-altering changes to their thoughts, beliefs, and behavior. At the beginning of the novel, the narrator is the…
One of the main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Cask Of Amontillado is revenge. This summary theme, it’ll demonstrate how dramatic irony is used all along with the short story as a way of reminding us of the true intentions of the character who vowed revenge. Firstly, a brief summary of the short story:…
Langston Hughes, born in 1902 and died in 1967, wrote some of the most well know works during the Harlem Renaissance. His poem, “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” is one of his writings from this time period. The poem, if literally interpreted is about rivers, but it holds a much deeper meaning to a trained…
The social status of women in ancient Greece was a very limited one, to say the least. In an era where women were little better than domestic slaves, there were few supporters of any kind of equality for them. One of these rare supporters, surprisingly, was none other than the great philosopher Plato. His great…
Throughout the play of Othello, Iago used many techniques to get what he wanted, and one way or another he somehow all most always got what he wanted. His techniques were that of an everyday sneaky, conniving bad guy, who always got people to trust him, except the person that was closest to him. But…
Sir Lancelot’s intense desire to perform heroic deeds was brought on by his lack of confidence and insecurity. His childhood was spent in seclusion, training for a job desired only to escape the hellish life that his hideous face would otherwise hold in store for him. Lancelot’s adulthood was spent trying to overcompensate for this…
Comedy affords us the opportunity to explore how the world might look and feel with the dead weight of predominance and probability lifted from its shoulders. Whereas tragedy is preoccupied with the annihilation of the potential by the actual, comedy is leveled at the (pitifully) remote horizon of what could be, rather than absorbed in…
In Langston Hughes’ poem “Ruby Brown,” the title character was too pretty, too good for the city of Mayville but the oppression of African-Americans during this period forbade her to take control of her life and realize the dreams she had. She had two options in her cruel and desperate life. In a nutshell, one…
In the novel To Kill a Mocking Bird there are three characters that are considered to be mocking birds. If you are not familiar with the term mocking bird it means someone who does something good and someone else looks down on him or her or hurts them. The three characters that play this role…
The Mosquito Coast depicts the story of an unstable, antisocial individual whose unsubstantial paranoia causes him to dramatically alter the courses of his and other people’s lives. The man’s continual fear of a nuclear invasion by an irate, immoral country eventually this man to move himself and his family to a remote jungle area of…
Shakespeare uses many motifs to expand on the themes of the story. His most-used motif revolves around filial responsibility. Each of the two plots contains characters who betray their fathers. Goneril and Regan flatter their father, King Lear, and then betray him. The drastic change that occurred in their attitude towards their father is clearly…
Some of the earliest Mesoamerican cultures included the Olmecs, the Mayas, and the Aztecs. The Olmecs lived near the Gulf of Mexico, in “swampy, lowland river valleys.” Water drains made out of stone, hieroglyphic writings, and a calendar, were a few of their achievements. The Mayas lived in the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico today. Their…
Europe held indisputable interest in expansion and exploration of new land for many various reasons. Early on it was for the trade of riches, sugars, spices and silks. Also new routes to lead to these trades, but alternate routes were needed to overcome monopolies. Plus new land for expanding territory, and empire in a new…
“Fair is foul, and foul is fair” (1.1.12) is the infamous line that begins Shakespeare’s Macbeth. This line highlights the relationship between one’s appearance and the reality of their nature. In this play the connection between appearance and reality is paradoxical; what appears in one a way in reality may not be that way. Throughout…
In The Prince, Niccolo Machiavelli presents a view of governing a state that is drastically different from that of humanists of his time. Machiavelli believes the ruling Prince should be the sole authority determining every aspect of the state and put in effect a policy which would serve his best interests. These interests were gaining,…
The character Ralph is realistic, independent and civil in this novel. In The Lord of the Flies, by William Golding. Ralph must do many things for his own survival and the survival of the other boys on the island. I think the obstacles he has to overcome make up his character throughout the book. A…
This is a massive question – one which affects every character in The God of Small Things. That is to say, every character in some way crosses or transgresses, a boundary of some sort. This, of course, is necessarily a cursory glance at the “forbidden transgressions” of most of the novel’s dominant figures. The God…
Thousands of people all over the world suffer daily from cancer. As technology improves, medical advances are made to prolong the life of cancer patients at all costs. Treatments such as chemotherapy and radiology have become increasingly accepted as the normal care for cancer. While technology concentrates on treating the cancer and remedying the scientific…
The tragedy Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a play written by Eugene O’Neill, tells the story of a small middle-class family in the early nineteenth century. All of the characters have numerous tragic flaws that eventually lead to the family’s collapse. The man of the family, James Tyrone, is an extremely frugal individual that is…
In Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, Milkman Dead becomes a man by learning to respect and to listen to women. In the first part of the novel, he emulates his father, by being deaf to women’s wisdom and women’s needs, and casually disrespecting the women he should most respect. He chooses to stray from his…