Some critics read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita as a story of Humbert's unrequited love for the title character; others consider it a record of the rant-ings of a mad pedophile, with, as Humbert himself admits, "a fancy prose style. " Nabokov's innovative construction, in fact, highlights both of...
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1) From the last paragraph in the biographical section on page 51 that starts with “In ‘Notes of a Native Son,’” was most useful to my understanding of this essay because it gives a brief summary of Baldwin’s essay. However, the first couple of sentences on page 49 gave me an idea of what kind of...
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The Marriage of Pride and Prejudice "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"(Austen 1). Jane Austen started her book Pride and Prejudice in this way clearly stating that one of her major themes would be marriage. The line...
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I. Narrative technique in Tess of the D'Urbervilles Thomas Hardy uses a number of narrative techniques in his novel which enable the reader to get more deeply involved into the plot and emphasize with the characters. Among the techniques he employs are the third person omniscient narrator...
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?The American Dream in The Great Gatsby The American dream in The Great Gatsby seems at first to be just about money and material things, but the meaning becomes deeper when the clear meaning is the love that Gatsby has for Daisy and his quest to get her back. Gatsby has the life that most people...
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Heroism redefined Lord of the Rings J. R. R. Tolkien Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, offers the reader a truly compelling picture of the world of Middle-earth. The author, in great detail, depicts a complex reality which abounds in a whole variety of creatures, cultures, languages and...
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During the book The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, the reader is able to see some of the many unique values or characteristics that Lily, the main character, holds. Even in the early stages of this book one is able to see Lily’s character traits, such as, her low self-worth and esteem, her...
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Notion of Balance in Things Fall Apart The notion of balance in Achebe's novel is an important theme throughout the book. Beginning with the excerpt from Yeats's poem, "The Second Coming," the concept of balance is stressed as important, for without balance, order is lost. In the novel, there are...
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1. Women of the 1800s did not have the same independence that women have today. A woman was meant to constantly be under the care of a man. As a child, women were ruled by their fathers. As they got older, their husbands would take on responsibility for them. If a woman remained unmarried, her...
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Miss Emily Grierson is a character that stands out in the minds of most Americans. Almost all American Literature teachers and professors have assigned A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner to students for generations. The story of Miss Emily has enthralled readers to the point that most will never...
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The play “Antigone” by Sophocles depicts the tale of Antigone who defies the orders of King Creon and fulfills her wish of burying her brother’s body. King Creon argues that Antigone’s brother, Polynices displayed disobedient behavior by fighting against him in the Thebes’ civil war so he orders...
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During the early nineteen forties, war was raging throughout the world. Countries sought to obliterate each other and eradicate all forms of existence outside of their own perimeter. While bombs were being dropped by the hundreds and bullets being fired by the thousands, families back home yearned...
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Emma Woodhouse: Awake or Dreaming? A dream. A world where ideas run wild and imagination is the primary mode of thought. Reality is a faraway distance. Eventually, the dream comes to an end as reality creeps into sleep and the fantasy finishes. The story of Jane Austen’s Emma is one of a similar...
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Hedda Gabler, played by Rebecca Chanelle Holoptier, marries a history scholar by the name of George Tesman, played by Stephen Cross. Hedda and George are getting back from a six-month honeymoon. During their six-month honeymoon, George seems to spin the majority of his time in libraries and doing...
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Reading Lolita in Tehran 1. Explain the Blind Censor. How does Nafisi use the Blind Censor to help express what she and her girls hope to do when they meet at her house every week? The book informs the reader that the Blind censor was "the chief film censor in Iran up until 1994" and before that...
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I am going to be using Marxism to interpret the book, Native Son. When talking about Marxism, it generally deals with gender, class, and race. In the book, Native Son, there are many examples of Marxism that have to do with underestimating and unfairness. This was evident especially when dealing...
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Pride and Prejudice: The Importance of Marriage Pride and Prejudice is written by Jane Austen with the purpose of positioning us, as the readers, to share her attitudes on the importance of marriage. Austen had extremely radical views for her time. She believed that marriage should not occur on...
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The two novels are based in the past when women were not considered as equal to men. The characters, Tess and Jane are both the main characters of the novels "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" and "Jane Eyre". "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" is based on the experiences of Tess. Whereas, "Jane Eyre" is an...
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The American dream is interwoven and deeply embedded in every fabric of American life. It has also been the focal point of many novels in American literature. This dream, as seen in "The Great Gatsby", is associated with rugged individualism, generous enthusiasm and idealism in the pursuit of...
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Extra Credit: The Lord of the Rings The Lord of the Rings, famous movie series that consist of the quest to destroy the Ring and defeat the evil, has significant character roles that can be evaluated by Sartre’s definition of existentialism. Sartre defined existence as chaos that we must impose...
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Set in the American South in 1964, the year of the Civil Rights Act and intensifying racial unrest, Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees is a powerful story not simply about bees, but of coming-of-age, of the ability of love to transform our lives, and of the often unacknowledged longing for...
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Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs and customs, and also a story about conflict. There is struggle between family, culture, and the religion of the Ibo, which is all brought on by a difference in personal beliefs and customs of the Igbo and the British. There are...
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Most literature tells a story combining the elements of love, hate, and revenge. Everyone can relate to these universal emotions. The way in which characters deal with these emotions varies greatly. Some characters let their head rule their heart, others let their hearts overrule every objection...
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It was Homer Barron’s remains that lay on the bed in one of the rooms of the old Grierson house, found there forty years after his disappearance. The circumstances and events cited by the author of the short story “A Rose for Emily” point out to this inevitable conclusion. Only a person with an...
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Antigone: Civil Disobedience The short play, Antigone, was written in 441 B. C. by the Greek playwright Sophocles. It deals with some of the most basic problems that affect a society. One of them is Civil Disobedience. Civil Disobedience both a right and responsibility of a person to fight an...
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Catch-22: The Inherent Abuse of Power Through Milo Minderbinder Two major themes of Catch-22 by Joseph Heller are the absurdity of war and the abuse of power. These two themes depend on one another in order to coexist. It is through the power exhibited by senior officers and command staff that the...
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The transformation process redefines a story to make it accessible to the culture and values of a contemporary context. The manipulation of medium, genre, setting, characters and plot enables the transformed text to be understood and connect with a new audience. Amy Heckerling’s post-modern film...
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The conflict between society and the individual and the individual in conflict with its own desires is at work in Ibsen’s play Hedda Gabler. From the outset it must be stated that the play revolves around the manipulative, yet attractive figure of Hedda Gabler. There are no other characters that...
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Unattainable love in Lolita Nowadays, everyone in our society is out to find their one and only true love. Some may find their true love in high school; some may find their true love when they are elderly, but there will always be someone out there for everyone, it just takes some effort. Today...
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SXSX Native Son Topic #2 Throughout the novel, Native Son, Bigger is seen as being a sympathetic character by many readers. “He hated his family because he [Bigger] knew that they were suffering and that he was powerless to help them” (Wright 10). This shows how Bigger acknowledges his family...
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Marriage Ideas in Pride and Prejudice Marriage is supposed to be about money and a very small affection towards the person you are marrying. Marriage is a decision made by societies dictates as well. "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be...
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Love is a prevalent and pervasive theme in Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Many aspects of love are explored in the novel, and they show the complexity of Hardy's attitude towards love. The intertwined stories of Tess, Angel and Alec explore the effect that events have on their feelings, and show, in...
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America: a land of endless wealth, and the dream; a dream of endless opportunity, is not depicted as such in the books The Grapes of Wrath and The Great Gatsby. The Dream is instead portrayed as hypocritical in the assumption that spiritual satisfaction is always accompanied material gain. In The...
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The Ring’s Addiction “One ring to rule them all, One ring to find them/ One ring to bring them all and in the darkness blind them/ In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie. ” (p. 8) This was said at the beginning of the story telling a brief summary of the ring of Sauron. The poem tells you how...
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Written by Sue Monk Kidd the novel "The Secret Life of Bees" traces the life of a 14 year old girl searching for love and care. The story begins in a peach farm in Sylvan, South Carolina but travels toward and ends in Tiburon, South Carolina. The city of Tiburon unleashes many truths that lily has...
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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...
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William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” narrates the life of Emily Grierson and the murder that she commits alongside the members of her community. Narrated from a first person’s point of view, the text outlines the formation and death of a murderer whose existence society...
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The Chorus of Antigone The chorus was not only a major part of Antigone, but also the most insightful portion of this play's cast. The members of the chorus tell Creon and the audience very important truths about themselves. Throughout the play the chorus comments on Creon's actions, and gives us...
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Language In Catch-22 Catch-22 is a witty novel written by Joseph Heller that covers many aspects of World War II that usually go untouched. Unlike most war novels, Catch-22 shows the irrationality of war and its negative affects felt by soldiers. It is not the usual novel where hero's are marked...
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Transformations often involve using the same storyline of a text and changing its context in order to suit the environment, culture or society. In terms of highlighting the themes in a transformed text, it also indicates that the issues that were apparent in the past are still relevant to the...
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What makes a play a tragedy? Generally defined, a Greek tragedy is “a drama of a serious and dignified character that typically describes the development of a conflict between the protagonist and a superior force (such as destiny, circumstance or society) and reaches a sorrowful or...
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Lolita is a complex story of passion, obsession, and manipulation. In the forward, Psychologist John Ray, Jr. , introduces the story; "Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male,"(Nabokov, Vladmir Lolita, 3) as written by a middle-aged European pedophile named Humbert Humbert. The...
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In his novel, Native Son, Richard Wright reveals his major theme of the Black population in America in the 1930’s. In the opening scene of the novel, Wright introduces his condemning message towards the ugliness of American racism and the social oppression of Blacks in his time. The opening scene...
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Bridget Jones's Diary is a highly imaginative interpretation of the novel Pride and Prejudice, so different to be hardly recognizable. Discuss. Directed by Sharon Maguire in 2001, one hundred and eighty-eight years after Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813, with that, Bridget Jones's Diary...
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Thomas Hardy’s main character, Tess, in Tess of D’Urbervilles, and Chaucer’s main character, Alisoun, in The Wife of Bath’s Prologue, have both been portrayed as women ‘behaving badly’ in society’s point of view and these portrayals have been greatly influenced by the values and attitudes towards...
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The American Dream From the birth of America, to America today, the driving force and the heart of America has always been the “American Dream. ” The actual idea of the “American Dream” is older than the United States. It dates back to the 1600’s, when people began to come up with all sorts of...
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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Amazed! This is the only word that can describe my emotion after watching the film, “The Lord of the Rings, The Fellowship of the Ring”. It is the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and is based on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings novel series. It is...
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"The Secret Life Of Bees" Have you ever discovered something that changed everything you thought when you were growing up? Lily Owens did. In The Secret Life Of Bees though, she was in for a rude awakening. Throughout this story we follow Lily as she discovers things about her past as she sets out...
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"Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe a) Describe in detail your impression of Okonkwo's character having read part one of the novel. b) What is Okonkwo's response to the arrival of the white man, and how does he cope with the changes that come about under the influence of a different culture. c)...
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Responds to Martha: I quite disagree with your first statement, if you read the story well, you will notice that even before she knew Homer Barron there have been complains by her neighbor about her stinking house, and also it was written that after one to two weeks the smell faded away i.e...
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