From the Paper "Some things about fairy tales we know to be true. They begin with "once upon a time." They end with "happily ever after." And somewhere in between the prince rescues the damsel in distress.
Of course, this is not actually the case. Many fairytales omit these essential words. But few fairytales in the Western tradition indeed fail to have a beautiful, passive maiden rescued by a vibrant man, usually her superior in either social rank or in moral standing. Indeed, it is precisely the passivity of the women in fairy tales that has led so many progressive parents to wonder whether their children should be exposed to them. Can any girl ever really believe that she can grow up to be president or CEO or an astronaut after five viewings of Disney's "Snow White"?"
Bacchilega (1997, chapter 2) chooses "Snow White" as a nearl
Abstract This paper examines Barbara Ehrenreich's book "Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America" about her experiences in trying to live on the minimum wage. She spent a year on the road working from everything as a Wal-Mart clerk to a maid to a waitress and discovers it is nearly impossible to survive, let alone live, on $6 to $7 per hour, which is well over the $5.15 Federal minimum hourly wage. It analyzes her experiences trying to hide her education, finding cheap accomodation and living with out health insurance. The paper updates us on basic information about minimum wage regulations, welfare reform and other relevant details and makes us realize that there are a whole class of people that we see every day such as waitresses and clerks whom we take for granted.
From the Paper "In 1996, Barbara Ehrenreich was enjoying lunch with an editor from "Harper's" magazine, and together they fleshed out an idea. Ehrenreich would write a magazine article on what it was like to be one of America's working poor. She would take a low-paying $6 or $7 per hour job, and see what it took to survive. Her basic premise for her research was ""is it really possible to make a living on the kinds of jobs currently available to unskilled people"" (Ehrenreich). The result of her research is "Nickel and Dimed." She spent a year on the road working from everything as a Wal-Mart clerk to a maid to a waitress. What she found about the working poor in America is the basis of this book."
This paper examines Carlos Fuentes's "The Death of Artemio Cruz", showing how the protagonist Artemio's character personifies the betrayal of the ideals of the Mexican Revolution.
2,025 words (approx. 8.1 pages), 4 sources, 1990, $ 71.95
From the Paper "The purpose of this research is to examine Carlos Fuentes's "The Death of Artemio Cruz", with a view toward showing how Artemio's character personifies the ultimate betrayal of the ideals of the Mexican Revolution. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which Artemio's character develops, and then to show how Fuentes uses him as an analogue for the success of the goals of the revolution on one hand, and for the failure of the ideals of the revolution on the other.
Artemio is an emblem of the successful revolutionary who has co-opted the goals of the revolution to achieve economic gain and a more generalized personal power. To put it another way, one set of oligarchs (disguised as petty bourgeois) has supplanted the other, and by the time the new oligarchy has been established, one can hardly tell the new regime from the old one, ... "
This paper discusses Kai T. Erikson's "Everything In Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood". which analyzes the relationship of culture and social structure before and after the 1972 destruction of Buffalo Creek by flood.
1,575 words (approx. 6.3 pages), 1 source, 1991, $ 55.95
From the Paper "This study will provide a book report on Kai T. Erikson's "Everything In Its Path: Destruction of Community in the Buffalo Creek Flood".
The study will explain how culture and social structure are related in the case of Buffalo Creek, will describe the culture (the mountain ethos) and the elements of social structure (both local and national) and how a change in one aspect of the social structure affects a change in the other, will argue that the changes are reciprocally related, and will discuss the personal traumas (chronic and/or acute) of Buffalo Creek residents in terms of the destruction of both culture and social structure in that community.
Clearly, Erikson argues that the culture and social structure of Buffalo Creek are intimately related, both before ... "
From the Paper "Harriet A. Jacobs, in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, focuses on the loss of humanity which occurs in the experience of slavery. For her, this loss of humanity was never complete, for she made of her experience a constant struggle for freedom of mind and will and body. As a woman slave, she suffered the sexual exploitation of her masters, and as a mother she suffered the horrors of not being able to protect her children from the experience of slavery. But if Jacobs gives the reader a complete picture of the suffering she and her fellow slaves endured, she also makes clear that she not only survived but maintained a sense of her humanity and her individuality as well:
I had my secret hopes; but I must fight my battle alone. I had a woman's pride, and a mother's love for my children; and I resolved that out of the darkness of this hour a..."
Abstract This paper addresses how Plato and Aristotle, although from similar traditions, differed in their perceptions of happiness. The comparison is done by addressing Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" and Plato's "The Republic".
Abstract A short analysis of the imagery and symbolism behind Ken Kesey's, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", an epic work on society, individuality, and fear. Quotes from the book are used to support the conclusions drawn from Kesey's supposed intentions. A major theme in the paper focuses on how Kesey emphasized the importance of delusions versus reality.
From the Paper "The old-fashioned "mental asylum" was rumoured to be full of screaming men, popping pills in their world of illusions; utterly unfit to lead civilized lives and left to shriek and cower in isolation. Modern medicine and modern politesse have changed the ancient chaos of the Bellevue into a white padded room, full of calm and care and cures. Both the past and the present stereotypes are equally false, because the ones who create them are not the ones living them. Whether true to the conventional idea of reality or not, it's the inhabitants who create the habitat and imbue it with their perceptions. One of the miracles of Ken Kesey's book, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, was that he created an false reality that could be easily accepted as fact. Kesey created a psychotic Indian and made his delusions of machines and mutations as indisputably real as the starched white uniforms of Big Nurse herself. It was the imagery Kesey was able to evoke that lent the hospital its sense of validity, not because of what it really was, but because of what it really seemed."
Abstract This paper defines the Oedipal Complex and show how it emerges as a theme in Shakespeare's 'Hamlet', through the relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude, his mother. The closet theme is shown as a major scene that reflects their relationship, as well as other scenes which show Hamlet's anguish at being replaced in his mother's affection by another man.
From the Paper "A young boy suffering from the Oedipal Complex has sexual desires for his mother and aggressive feelings toward his father. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, the object of Hamlet's Oedipal Complex, Gertrude, follows the criteria of this theory. Although Hamlet outwardly disapproves of his mother's marriage, Gertrude constantly expresses her undying affection for her son. The Closet Scene, in addition to revealing the Oedipal Complex, best exemplifies the conflict in Hamlet's relationship with his mother. "
Abstract This essay compares and contrasts the behaviors and actions of Hamlet and Othello. In particular, the two characters' handling of love, grief and revenge are examined.
From the Paper "Chance, coincidence, and circumstance influence the actions one takes when dealing with highly emotional situations. Everyone has their own way of dealing with these emotional situations, but the actions one chooses to carry out portray an image of the character they have become. In William Shakespeare's Hamlet, and Othello, Hamlet and Othello, respectively, are similar in ways of handling their emotional states, but are very unalike in some aspects also. Hamlet and Othello's handling of love, grief, and revenge can be compared and contrasted in their respective plays. The love of their women, the grief of their losses, and the revenge that consumed them, have different, yet similar approaches by Hamlet and Othello."
Abstract An analysis of the narrative book 'Frederick Douglas'. A narration about slavery experienced by Frederick Douglass, a slave during the American period of slavery. The author discusses the history of slavery in the American society, its causes and effects.
From the Paper "This narrative of an American slave shows in great detail, the horrors of being a slave, and the severity and callousness of the slaveholders of the South. The reader witnesses the growth of Frederick Douglass from a young slave to a free man, all the while experiencing the great terrors and misfortunes of slave life. In the South, during the 1800s, it was a crime punishable by death for a slave to be taught to read and write. However, Douglass secretly taught himself, and because of this, we have the opportunity to read one of the most powerful testimonies of slavery in American history."
Tags: civil, trade, war, cruel, abuse, torture, calousness, suffer, freedom, imprisonment, force
Abstract An analysis of Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita". The author describes the use of structure, text and style in the novel often referred to as 'fantasy'. The author discusses how these reveal the theme of good and evil in the novel.
From the Paper "Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is a tale of black magic and of a spiritual journey. Ivan Bezdomy, whose surreal spiritual adventure, is the eye of the story's illusionary hurricane, doesn"t even get his name in the title. This discussion, based on the premise that this is more Ivan's story than the Master"s, attempts to track the trickery that masquerades as Bulgakov's search for a hero. Careful analysis of structure, text and style reveals that Ivan and the Master are actually schizophrenic halves of the same character. The style in which Bulgakov chooses to write this novel, has been variously described as "magical realism" (Grenier 286), ? bizarre phantasmagoria? (Wakeman 240), and a "fantasy" (Calendar 76). This style is brilliantly suited to Bulgakov's intent which is not only to satirize Stalinist Russia, but to deeply ponder the nature of good and evil and to present the union of Ivan and the Master as a foil for Satan."
Abstract This paper is a literary critique about the novel "Pride and Prejudice". It comments on the view of marriage as portrayed through the characters in the novel.
From the Paper "19th century England had serious social problems from the heyday of Royalty and Nobility. One of the most significant of these was the tendency to marry for money. A person sought a partner based on the dowry receivable and their allowance. This process went both ways: a beautiful woman might be able to snag a rich husband, or a charring and handsome man could woo a rich young girl. In these marriages, money was the only consideration. Love was left out, with the thought that it would develop as the years went by. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen comments that marriage in her time is a financial contract, where love is strictly a matter of chance. This is clearly evident from the very first line of the novel: "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). "
Abstract This paper examines the novel "Midaq Alley" in light of the social reality that it depicts. The characters, Muslims in Cairo, and what they represent in terms of human needs, social class and economic status, are discussed.
From the Paper "The novel Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz is a portrayal of several individuals living within a particular section of Cairo. Almost all of the characters are Muslim. Several are middle class but others, the most striking of the narrative, are quite poor and simply struggle to survive. Through creating such variety of characters from different social stratum, whom all meet in the context of the alley of the title, the author is able to construct a novel that both tells a tale and yet is also revelatory on a social and on a political level. The book has often been called "important" not just in terms of its humor and striking literary value, but because of the unsentimental social reality it depicts."
Tags: Muslim, poor, society, need, class, status, Egypt, motherhood, middle-class
Abstract This paper introduces and discusses Primo Levi's concept of "the drowned and the saved" in chapter nine of "Survival at Auschwitz." Specifically it compares two individuals that are not mentioned in that chapter, as examples of men that Levi might put into those two categories, and what it is about these men that put them in these categories.
From the Paper "Levi's concept of the "drowned and the saved" is simple. He describes those who make it through living in the concentration camp of Auschwitz, and those who do not. The bottom line is, those who make it are the saved, and those who do not are the drowned. There is much more to it than that, and Levi tries to delve into the people themselves, and what made them give up, or not give up, but essentially, the principle is the same, there are saved and drowned individuals in each of the camps. "?the drowned, form the backbone of the camp, an anonymous mass, continually renewed and always identical, of non-men who march and labour in silence, the divine spark dead within them, already too empty to really suffer" (Levi 82)."
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to introduce and discuss the book "Reservation Blues," by Sherman Alexie. Specifically, it looks at the musical poem at the beginning of the chapter "My God Has Dark Skin," and how it relates to the beliefs and religion of the characters throughout the book.
From the Paper "These words tell the story of how the Native American's had to give up their beliefs, and their religion for the white man's religion, in the name of "modernity" and "Christianity." The numerous Native American tribes each had a complex religious system, made up of folk tales, and a wide variety of gods and goddesses. Yet, when the white men came and took over the Indian lands, they tried to convert them to the "true" religion of Christianity, while they gave up their old ways and beliefs."
Tags: Indian, god, christianity, modernity, native, american, white, men
