An exploration of the trickster figure in Native American culture and its presence in Erdrich's fiction, and a general analysis of the story's two main characters.
1,370 words (approx. 5.5 pages), 4 sources, 2001, $ 45.95
From the Paper "Nanabozho is the trickster hare of Chippewa tribal lore. He represents mischief, both playful and malicious deceit, and all things manipulative. Marie is a trickster. A main player in Louise Erdrich's Love Medicine and the star of one of the book's sections, Marie narrates the details of her adolescence with unflinching wit and attention to every graphic detail. Saint Marie (Chapter two in Love Medicine) tells the story of Marie's experiences as a fourteen year old girl sent to live in a convent, and achieving a much-desired moment of sainthood by the folly of her main rival, the torturous nun Sister Leopolda. The theme of Marie's seemingly indestructible spirit and wit, compounded by the oppressive atmosphere in which she fights for her individuality (nearly to the death) and emerges victorious is at the story's heart. Everything in the text: Marie, Sister Leopolda, the convent, the nature of good and evil, all make their appearances as manipulative and deceiving at one point or another. "
A comparison of the common themes of wealth, drunkeness and sex in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway.
3,143 words (approx. 12.6 pages), 2 sources, 2000, $ 91.95
Abstract An examination of works from both authors which closely examine American realities through characters that pursue wealth, drunkenness and sex with the hope that they will provide at least the possibility of some sort of meaning.
From the Paper ""The Great Gatsby" and "The Sun Also Rises" by F. Scott Fitzgerald: Wealth, Drunkenness and Sex
Like other writers of the 1920's, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were fascinated by what had become of the American Dream. The impact of World War I on both Fitzgerald and Hemingway and on their generation was tremendous. Indeed, many writers in the postwar period took on the unpleasant task of exposing the degradation of the American Dream; of covering the grossest aspects of selfishness, hypocrisy and moral vacuum. Fitzgerald and Hemingway's characters are a careless, aimless, pleasure-seeking crowd ?which is clearly emblematic of a generation of lost souls. Before Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises, opens, he quotes Gertrude Stein who names the generation that came of age during the First World War as the ?lost generation.? Indeed, the pre-war values of love, faith, manhood and womanhood, which previously gave meaning to life, fail to offer an adequate answer to Fitzgerald's and Hemingway's characters who try to produce meaning in a world seemingly lost to rampant, amoral consumerism and loveless-ness. Both authors closely examine American realities through characters that wander through endless experiences of wealth, drunkenness and sex with the hope that they will provide at least the possibility of some sort of dependable meaning. "
Tags: daisy, east, ernest, hemingway, jake, tom, west
An examination of the motif of the desert in "The English Patient" by Michael Ondaajte, as a parallel to life itself, not just for the main character, but for humanity.
1,010 words (approx. 4 pages), 1 source, 2000, $ 35.95
From the Paper ?After spending ten years in the desert, the English patient is a shadow of his former self. Everything the English patient experiences in the desert is very short lived, and this is compared to the difficulty in finding an ample amount of water. The English patient speaks of water as the " . . . ghost between your hands and your mouth" and notes that "In the desert you celebrate nothing but water" (19; ch. 1 | 23; ch. 1). This strengthens the idea that nothing in the desert is permanent, and everything is valuable. In this sense, the desert represents not only the English patient's life, but life in general.?
Abstract This paper presents an overview of how Hemingway's novel "A Farewell to Arms", portrays the destructive power of war.
From the Paper "Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms depicts how war destroys the natural process of life, the foundation of society, and the future of those involved. Society's norms determine the natural order of an individual's life. Nature, the intrinsic characteristics of a person or thing, is the symbol of the natural order of life. Symbolism is a recurring theme or setting that represents reality on one level and simultaneously calls your attention to another level of meaning. Using both symbols of nature and the love affair of Lieutenant Frederick Henry and Catherine Barkley, Hemingway shows how war alters the natural process of life."
From the Paper "In the novel "The Joy Luck Club", by Amy Tan, each girl desires to be the exact opposite of her mother, when in reality they are almost exactly alike. An-mei's daughter, Rose, is a quiet woman just like a traditional Chinese woman. Lindo's daughter, Waverly, is like her in the way that they have both become so Americanized that they no longer fit in anywhere. Ying-ying's daughter, Lena, is like her in the way that both are passive ?shadows,? neither ever being seen nor heard. Suyuan-Woo's daughter, Jing-mei, is like her in the fact that they both fear that they have lost an important part of their family forever without ever really appreciating it. As a result of these similarities, each mother and daughter are so alike that they are mirror images of each other, living in a different time and in a different set of circumstances. "
Abstract This paper examines how Amy Tan's life has been a major inspiration for her stories, many of which were based on real events in her life. It looks at how Tan's novels pay homage to her Chinese heritage by depicting many of the customs of the Chinese people and the clash of these with American customs, as well as the struggles between Chinese mothers and their American-born daughters and the ways that their different upbringings have led to different values and beliefs.
From the Paper "Amy also went against her mother's wishes by dropping her pre-med classes in order to pursue the study of English and Linguistics, and received her Bachelor's and Masters degrees at San Jose State University. Tan later studied for her doctorate, first at University of California at Santa Cruz, then at Berkeley. In 1974, she and her boyfriend, Louis DeMattei, were married. They later settled in San Francisco (Hall). "
Abstract This paper looks at John Keats' poem "La Belle Dame Sans Merci" which was written in the Romantic era, analyzing the characteristics of romanticism it reflects, as well as how it differs from these notions.
From the Paper "Keats "had a Renaissance responsiveness to the grandeur of man's intellectual exploration of the universe" (Abrams 309). He did not seek to resolve the great mysteries of the world in his poetry. He believed in the concept of 'art for the sake of art', not to come to some resolution of truth or moral end. He concurred with the opinions of Shelley and Wordsworth that poetry should have a "worthy purpose" with an ethical and social effect. In response to Wordsworth's decree that "every great Poet is a Teacher: I wish to be considered as a Teacher, or as nothing," Keats countered, "we hate poetry that has a palpable design upon us" (Abrams 328-329). Keats did not continuously ask 'why', as did his peers of the Romantic Period. In his own words, he ascertained that, "Beauty is truth, truth beauty--that is all/ Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know" (Untermeyer 150)."
Abstract This paper presents an analysis of the literary elements of setting, symbol, and characters which supports the argument that the grotesque yellow wallpaper is Gilman's metaphor for the entrapment of women by social conventions in a patriarchal society.
From the Paper "Personification is defined as giving human characteristics to things that are not human. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story "The Yellow Wallpaper" appears to be a horror story about a woman who loses her sanity and suffers delirious hallucinations when the wallpaper in her bedroom becomes personified. But it can be argued that this story, written in the late 1800s, is actually Gilman's autobiographical dramatization of the destructive effects of the Victorian male-dominated society upon women. In ?The Yellow Wallpaper,? the author personifies the setting - the grotesque wallpaper in a chronically depressed woman's bedroom - to create a symbol of feminine oppression. Editor Linda Kriszner states that the story "makes a point about the dangers of women's utter dependence on male interpretation of their needs" "
Abstract This paper presents a short analysis of James Joyce's "Araby" which shows how Joyce uses contrasting characters and images to show the conflicts of the adolescent protagonist of the story and his sudden entry into the adult world.
From the Paper "A coming of age story deals with the growth and change of a young person into an adult. In some stories the growth of the character is conveyed in a coming of age flow of events, while in others a character experiences an epiphany that suddenly gives him or her great insight into the reality of life. Stories of maturation show the events that guide the young person into acceptance of adulthood. James Joyce's "Araby" is a good example of the adolescent experience because it contains literary elements such as characterization, narrative point of view, language, and epiphany that create a contrast between adulthood and adolescence, and between the protagonist's fantasies and the reality of the adult world."
Abstract This paper compares of the film version and the literary version of Walter Mosley's novel "Devil in a Blue Dress" to show the differences and similarities between the story elements in "Devil in a Blue Dress", the book and the movie.
From the Paper "Walter Mosley's book Devil in a Blue Dress and the movie by the same name share some similar literary elements, but there are several vital situations and parts of the book's story that are not present in the film. Yet the movie downplays some of the more brutal parts of the book. "
Abstract This paper is a general sketch about how modernism developed after World War I, with strong influence by 19th Century realism and naturalism. There is a description of firstly, the development of realism, and secondly, the development of naturalism, which leads to the beginnings of modernism and its purpose.
From the Paper "After World War I, American people and the authors among them were left disillusioned by the effects that war had on their society. America needed a literature that would explain what had happened previously and what was happening to their society. American writers turned to what is now known as modernism. The influence of 19th Century realism and naturalism and their truthful representation of American life and people was evident in post World War I modernism. "
From the Paper "The novel Beloved by Toni Morrison is the story of former slaves in a post-Civil War setting. The elements of African-American History and the experiences of the slaves have motivated Morrison to explore and write about the enormity and tragedy of slavery. Like the actual historical people on whom she bases her stories, Morrison's characters in Beloved struggle to find themselves and their cultural identity in an unjust society. Beloved is based on the non-fiction story of a runaway slave who, at the point of recapture by the white owners, kills her infant daughter in order to spare her a life of slavery. Beloved takes on deeper significance and meaning when it is viewed from a historical perspective. This novel is not only the story of Sethe, a survivor and escapee from slavery, but it is the tale of people like her who were haunted by slavery's heritage. "
Tags: Morrison, slavery, african, american, segregation, family
From the Paper "One of the dominant themes in the novel Ragtime is the idea of entrapment. The author E. L. Doctorow uses images such as the child buried in the garden, the immigrants buried in the ghetto tenement housing, and the Houdini story to communicate this theme. By using these images of entrapment, Doctorow illustrates how people become completely trapped in lives and events that are not necessarily of their making. Ragtime illustrates that even in America, the land of the free, almost everyone is somehow buried in social situations or financial conditions that keep entrapped in their particular circumstances."
Abstract This paper is an analysis of the similes, descriptive word choices, and sound patterns used in the poem "Dulce et Decorum Est" by Wilfred Owen. The paper has an underlying metaphor that compares poetry and painting that is developed and carried through the entirety of the paper, with an emphasis on the emotional hues of the poem.
From the Paper "Similes are used to lay the foundation colors, and create a tangible link between the incomprehensible scenes of war and everyday real life images. Few can imagine the true horrors of war without witnessing them first hand, so Owen creates two similes at the onset of the poem to set the scene in terms that the lay reader can envision. "Bent double, like old beggars under sacks" (line 1) and "Knock-kneed coughing like hags" (2) summon images of destitution, desperation, and weariness and help to portray the worn emotional state of the soldiers. Our first view of the unfortunate man suffering from the poison gas is of him "floundering like a man in fire or lime" (12) providing a clear image of the exquisite suffering that he was enduring."
Tags: beats, consonance, descriptive, pattern, rhyming, similes, war, words
Abstract This paper takes a look at how Shakespeare shows his audience the noble and ignoble nature of honor and chivalry in the behavior of the play's main characters Henry Percy, Henry Prince of Wales, Sir John Falstaff, and King Henry the Fourth. An examination of "Henry IV" shows how Shakespeare demonstrates these 16th century values of honor and justice to his audience.
Tags: honor, elizabeth, I, england, virtue, valor, glory
