My Ántonia has been called nostalgic and elegiac because it celebrates the past. The inscription on the title page of My Ántonia is a quotation from Virgil: “Optima dies… prima fugit.” This sentence, meaning “the best days are first to flee”, helps incorporate all the elements of the novel I would like to discuss. It…
Mozart is perhaps the greatest musical genius who ever lived. Mozart’s full name is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Most people called him Mozart or Wolfgang. Mozart was born in Salzburg, Austria, January 27, 1756. Mozart is the greatest musical child prodigy who ever lived. He began composing minuets at the age of 5 and symphonies at…
With the words “more weight” Giles Corey, from The Crucible by Arthur Miller, becomes a true hero. Throughout the play, Corey changes from a foolish old man, into a hero who courageously dies for his family’s well-being and honor. With just those two words, the character of Giles Corey is defined. Before the witch trials…
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, a very clear moral order is established as the protagonist, Hamlet, completes his journey through the phases which define a Shakespearean tragedy. The play begins with Hamlet encountering his father’s ghost, at which point he learns his father had in fact been murdered by his own brother, Claudius. It is Hamlet’s wish…
The U. S. has explored the moon since the 1960’s. “The Apollo Program” tells why the United States went to the moon. “The Apollo Spacecraft” tells how we got to the moon. The Apollo program was made to meet the goal set by John F. Kennedy on May 25, 1961. The goal was to land…
Metamorphosis is a key element in Greek mythology. This ability to change shape or form is a major development in the stories of Arachne, Zeus, and Daphne. Almost all of the gods had the power of metamorphosis. The first story was the one of Arachne. Arachne was a mortal, who was a great weaver. She…
If you stick a nickel-plated needle through your skin, what happens is essentially that your body senses the intrusion and opens up the capillary walls in the surrounding area to let plasma and antibodies in to kill any bacteria and start repairing the damage. Now, since you used proper sterile piercing procedure, there are no…
The novel The Long March by William Styron is a prime example of anti-war, anti-government, and anti-military writing. William Styron uses marine reserves, which are forced to make a 36 mile march that they are not prepared for, to show the brutality and hypocrisy in the leaders of this country. The reserves are people that…
The novel, McTeague, written by Frank Norris has many ways to understand the events. The relationships between the characters in the story are strange. First, it seems that the first half of the story many of the characters come together. For example, Marcus and McTeague become friends, Trina and McTeague get married, Maria and Zerkow…
Maria Montessori was born in the village of Charaville, Italy on August 31, 1870. She was born to a well respected family and was expected to grow up to fulfill the traditional role of the Italian woman. When she was three years old, the family moved to Rome where she received her education. Upon graduating…
William Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, is mainly based on the assassination of Julius Caesar. The character who was in charge of the assassination was, ironically, Marcus Brutus, a servant and close friend to Julius Caesar. But what would cause a person to kill a close friend? After examining Brutus’ relationship to Caesar,…
The Tempest, written in 1611, was one of William Shakespeare’s last plays. It has a combination of superb characters, interesting settings, and a good plot line-all held together by the running theme of magic, and its ever-present importance. A closer examination of the magic in The Tempest, and the public’s view of magic at the…
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,…
One might choose to assent to the statement, “Macbeth is a tragic hero.” This conclusion may be based upon certain characteristics, proposed by Aristotle, which warrants him worthy of such a title. Aristotle stated that a tragic hero must be of certain qualities: a man of noble stature, good, though not perfect, have a fall…
Defining the word love is almost impossible. No other word in the English language has so many different connotations and uses. There can be no one true single definition. However, for the purpose of this paper, I have come to the following conclusion. Love is an intense emotion, characterized by unwavering admiration and caring between…
While Larry McMurtry honors certain mythical features of the “Old West,” his epic, Lonesome Dove, is the quintessential representation of the realism of the “Old West.” By contrast, mythic representations of the “Old West” tend to look absurd and silly. Stories such as the one portrayed in the film “True Grit” appears to be ridiculous…
Loneliness is the core of a broken soul. It feeds on exile and hate. It engulfs dreams, pleasures and certain futures. Those who live with loneliness everyday cannot express how deep of a feeling it is to have everything you enjoy crushed by the absence of companionship. In the novel, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck…
Walt Whitman‘s Live Oak, With Moss, is an intricate portrayal of love, both physical and mental. Throughout the poem, Whitman incorporates an array of metaphors symbolic of love and the many characteristics associated with love. Dissimilar to mainstream poetry, Whitman introduces a friend-lover relationship between two men, describing the pain and happiness associated with their…
Our understanding of the literary achievements of King Alfred depend very much upon what we believe about his early education. If we are content to accept the stories of Asser, the famous biographer of Alfred, that he reached his twelfth birthday before he learned to read (Keynes 75), then we must reckon his literary career…
The short story A & P, by John Updike, can be broken down into a number of components, which include characters, setting, plot, point of view, and the theme. A & P is a story about a young man, about 19, named Sammy, who is a cashier at a local supermarket. His supporting characters are:…
