Abstract This paper examines how Nathaniel Hawthorne was a prolific writer of short stories, novels, and children's books, and how his works cover a variety of different subjects. It looks at how there are several themes that recur in his works and how one of these themes relates to sin and depravity. It shows how it is one of the major themes of his best known work, "The Scarlet Letter", and how the same theme also surfaces in a number of other works, including the short story, "Young Goodman Brown", and the short story, "The Minister's Black Veil." It explores how, in all of these works, Hawthorne communicates a similar view of human nature as it relates to sin and depravity and how he always shows sin and depravity as natural parts of human nature, parts that people must constantly battle.
From the Paper "As Hawthorne's best known work, it is fitting that the analysis begins with The Scarlet Letter. As well as being his best known work, The Scarlet Letter, is also a work with sin as the central theme. One source describes it as "an outstanding study of attitudes to sin and guilt, and of human psychology" (Kamm 204). Another source creates the link between the themes of sin and the study of human psychology by stating that the story is really about the character's personal battle between good and evil (Van Doren 10). This view of the story recognizes that the tendency toward sin is part of every person, where sin can also be described as evil. The good side of the person battles to control this desire to sin, but often the battle cannot be won. In the story, this is seen with the characters of Chillingworth, Dimmesdale, and Hester."
Abstract An analysis of the character of Bosola in Webster's "The Duchess of Malfi" contending that the character, like the play, is shrouded in uncertain mists of evil, ugliness, and depravity. The author looks at the experiences of the character and how the character changes throughout the play.
From the Paper "The Duchess of Malfi takes place in what Northrup Frye called a "sick and melancholy society" (Rabkin 119). Rupert Brook described Webster's characters as "writhing grubs in an immense night" (Rabkin 112). Evil, ugliness, and depravity rule. Beauty and goodness are doomed. In the beginning the character Bosola appears to fit right in, to be an unprincipled man with no conscience. Whether this is his real self, or whether he is an actor playing a part in order to survive in a polluted and perverted world, or whether he changes during the course of the action are some of the questions Webster enshrouds in the mist of this play. Finding clarity is the responsibility of each individual reader or viewer, as it was, in the end, up to Bosola to find his own way through the mist."
Abstract This paper examines the causes of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's murderous depravity. The paper discusses the defense attorney's insanity defense and details the biological causes, genetic disposition, mental disorders, sociological and economic causes.
From the Paper "The Causes of Crime. Summing up the case for his client's insanity, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's defense lawyer, Gerald Boyle, painted a chilling picture with his words. Skulls in a locker, cannibalism, sexual urges, drilling, making zombies, necrophilia, drinking alcohol all the time, trying to create a shrine, lobotomies de fleshing, calling taxidermists going to grave yards and masturbating. This is Jeffrey Dahmer; a runaway train on a track of madness."
Abstract This paper examines how both William Golding in "Lord of the Flies" and George Orwell in "1984" present a grim view of human nature, a view that indicates that humanity has an irresistible tendency to fall into an abyss of depravity and oppression. The paper explains that at first, Golding seems to offer a less pessimistic view of human nature than Orwell does but in the end their views are nearly identical. The paper looks at how Golding's boys begin free from the oppressions of society, but fall into savagery and how Orwell's society has already fallen before the novel opens, and escape is out of the question. The writer concludes that, in the end, it is harder to say whose vision is more negative, and a reader can do little more than hope that neither author is correct in his bleak vision.
From the Paper "Orwell presents a society already fallen. The Party controls every aspect of life, especially through the control of the constant propaganda that is bombarded on the inhabitants of Oceana, in which London is located. With the telescreens that watch every person (Orwell 2, 5-6, 9, 11, 27, 97, 148), the "two-minutes hate" each day, to the monthly public hangings (Orwell 23-4, 49-50, 57), the constant fear of the thought police (Orwell 4-5, 62, 101), grim depravation in which goods are always in short supply (Orwell 49, 162), and everything from cigarettes (Orwell 5), to gin (Orwell 5, 77, 150) to housing (Orwell 20-21), is of such poor quality that there is no possibility of joy in life (Orwell 41, 49, 60-61), this is a totalitarian society."
Tags:depravity, oppression, savagery, totalitarian, society
Abstract The paper explains the main theme of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men", which is the sideslip of the modern world towards evil and depravity. The paper goes on to show how the book emphasizes the dark side of American life, with its extreme corruption and violence. The paper also highlights how the world constructed by McCarthy appears as an entrapment for the modern man, which not only encloses him tightly but also blinds him to anything else. The paper concludes that in McCarthy's novel, evil in the modern world is not so much perpetuated through actual perpetration, but through the modern's universe lack of concern for the distinction between good and bad.
From the Paper "Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men takes its title from William Butler Yeats' famous poem Sailing to Byzantium. The title therefore already announces the main theme of the book: the sideslip of the modern world towards evil and depravity. The fast paced action of the novel and the sketchy descriptions make of the book a Western and even a literary thriller, but, at a deeper level, the text is fraught with profound meanings about the battle between the forces of evil and the forces of good. McCarthy's world is filled with too much corruption and evil and too little good. The chain of gruesome crimes and amoral deeds pervades the whole of the novel. McCarthy thus depicts the modern world as a state of things in which the equipoise between good and evil is lost. This why the world is no longer fitted for old men who belong to a more balanced and ordered state of things."
Abstract This paper describes the eating of human flesh by several killers including the infamous Albert Fish, Joachim Kroll and Jeffrey Dahmer. The paper conjures that the answer to this detestable and violent act lies somewhere in the depraved and sick minds of these individuals that themselves were brutalized by child rape, physical battery and outright torture by relatives or even their own parents.
Table of Contents:
Overview
Albert Fish--Cannibal of Brooklyn
Joachim Kroll--German Cannibal
Jeffrey Dahmer--Cannibal Extraordinaire
Final Thoughts
From the Paper "In the early 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was helping to stabilize the American economy as a result of the Great Depression, Albert Hamilton Fish, a serial killer and cannibal known as the Gray Man, the Werewolf of Wysteria and the Brooklyn Vampire, was under arrest in New York City for the kidnapping and brutal murder of twelve-year-old Grace Budd. In 1928, Mr. Fish, who had assumed the name of Mr. Howard, became a close friend of the Budd family and was allowed to take Grace to a birthday party."
From the Paper "With Blue Velvet, David Lynch did an effective job in dividing both popular and critical opinions about his odd piece of cinema. While some hail it as a masterpiece, others retain that it is pure perverse nonsense. Despite the initial shock of the overly violent sequences, Lynch's vivid revelation of baseness and depravity in small-town America makes its point clearly, if not bizarrely. One of the most obvious and effective ways by which the film's themes are conveyed is through an absolutely brilliant utilization of sound and score."
Abstract In the play, Shaw set out to challenge the satisfaction of his audience and weaken some of their most deep-rooted notions. He draws public attention to the truth that prostitution is caused, not by female depravation, but simply by underpaying, undervaluing, and overworking women, in a capitalist and chauvinist society. These controversies develop through the different characters particularly, and the theme is analysed in the relation between Vivie and her mother.
From the Paper "Mrs Warren's Profession, written by Bernard Shaw in the early nineteen hundreds, deals with a series of moral issues, which are of important relevance even now. Throughout the play, Bernard Shaw, proves to be an incisive and irreverent social citric, therefore being the antithesis of the romantic dramatist which characterized Victorian society. Shaw, uses the play to put forward his ideas and criticize social and moral issues existent at the beginning of the 20th century in British society, issues which ironically are still applicable in our supposedly developed world."
Abstract The paper shows that the story of the original sin was a vitally important one for Christians throughout history, and in the extensively Christian world for which William Shakespeare wrote, its absolute truth went unquestioned. The paper discusses how in many ways, the play "Othello" may be seen as a political, emotional, and tragic response to the same questions of knowledge, culpability and death that this creation myth inspires. It shows how the serpent, Iago, convinces the original and ideal man to rebel against god in search of knowledge that he ought not have, and which will only destroy him: Thus Othello falls from strength and purity to weakness, depravity, and death.
From the Paper "Act III, Scene III, is by far the most loaded and pivotal scene in the play. It is in this scene that Othello is truly seduced to take the forbidden fruit in his hand and to let that "green-eyed monster" of jealousy to run loose in his heart. Like a newly created creature, at the beginning of the seen he is a lighthearted 16 year old bridegroom. Certainly he has seen his share of the world, won battles and undergone dire straits, but he is still in many ways childlike and innocent. "
Abstract This paper examines Aristotle's definition of rhetoric as a neutral tool which can be used for either good or bad purposes by both the virtuous as well as the depraved individuals. The paper describes the use of rhetoric in public addresses and outlines Plato's input on the receptiveness of audiences.
From the Paper "Aristotle thus terms rhetoric as a neutral tool, which can be used for either of the good or bad purposes by both the virtuous as well as the depraved individuals. Accepting his art of rhetoric's ability to be misused, he even proposes certain factors that can be used to overturn the misuse of rhetoric?s, for example rhetoric is true for all goods, except for virtue, that it is better used in convincing the just and the good as compared to the unjust and wrong arguments, and that the benefits of rhetoric's outweigh its misuse."
Abstract This essay will argue that it is possible to read "Billy Budd" on a number of levels. Of course, it is an interesting tale of shipboard life at the end of the eighteenth century. As well, it may be seen as an allegory for the life of Christ, with the virtuous, innocent and inarticulate Billy Budd standing in for Christ. On yet another level it may be seen as a story of innocent virtue versus experienced corruption and impotence. In this respect, Melville's intended American audience may have read the story as tale of the corruption of the Old World and its decaying cosmopolitan civilization.
Abstract This paper reviews Henry James' novel "The Turn of the Screw", a pure and simple ghost story in which the depraved pair Quint and Miss Jessel have a passion to possess the souls of the innocent children by returning to their old haunts after death and infecting them with their evil. It shows how by analyzing the novel using different approaches, it can offer the reader other ways of looking at the story, providing alternative explanations for many of the events. It analyzes the structure of the novel and attempts to interpret it using a psychoanalytic approach, focusing on the train of thought associated with Lacan and Freud. It also discusses the concept of male homosocial desire and applies this to the prologue which precedes the story.
From the Paper "Letters in The Turn of the Screw become an important dramatic element in the narrative plot and can be related to the unconscious. The narrative written by the governess has to be sent to the narrator. The text is addressed so the story itself is essentially a letter. The first event in the narrative plot is a letter telling of Mile's dismissal from school. It fails to disclose the precise reasons for his expulsion thus the suspense within the narrative arises from what the letter does not include. Other letters within the plot are intercepted; the governess does not allow the children to contact their uncle by writing, she becomes troubled when Mrs Grose wants to send a letter to the Master and finally the governess? letter to the Master is destroyed by Miles. The story then is structured and set in motion by a chain of letters which are unreadable, and like the unconscious, they govern a course of action yet are impenetrable and inaccessible to the reader."
Abstract This paper examines the main characters in "Nostromo" and explains how Conrad uses these characters to convey his theme that human beings have limitations, and these limitations apply even to the morality of their actions.
From the Paper "We are told early on that there is a "sanctuary of peace sheltering the calm existence of Sulaco." (Conrad 1993). Yet, it quickly becomes apparent that this peace is deceptive. "Disorder in the form of recurrent military revolutions plagues Costaguana. Social and political breakdown is clearly the 'public theme' that Nostromo registers, and that affects the 'private histories' and destinies of the novel's characters." (Panichas 2002). In other words, the political and social turmoil present in Costaguana inevitably place the characters in ever-changing and turbulent situations. These shifting circumstances present unique problems for the characters Conrad portrays, who must make choices along the lines of courage, loyalty, morality, and self-interest."
Abstract The many objects used as symbols in "Crime and Punishment" lead readers to a greater understanding of both the growth of the characters and the themes presented throughout the work. This paper shows that Dostoevsky's use of symbolism unites various characters and links them with the themes of moral decay (the color yellow), suffering, entrapment in one's sins (the presence of insects), and redemption through confession (the presence of water). These symbols are most important in that they connect Raskolnikov with other characters who mirror parts of his personality and parts of his psychological struggles.
From the Paper "Numerous references are made to the color yellow, a hue which symbolizes the moral, physical, and mental decay of those in its presence. It is introduced quite early in the work, where it is noted that "...the yellowish dusty wall-paper peeling off the walls gave it a wretchedly shabby appearance..." (Dostoevsky 23). This setting creates a tone which matches Raskolnikov's mood that morning-"...bilious, peevish, and irritable" (23). It also hints at the decay that Raskolnikov is already experiencing. His landlady's servant, Nastasya, notes this when she brings him some tea and then exclaims that he will waste away if he does not drink it (23). She is, of course, simply addressing a physical type of decay (at least consciously); however, Raskolnikov's deterioration is of a much broader scope. It begins even before he decides to commit the murder of Alyona Ivanovna, the disagreeable pawnbroker, and her sister Lizaveta."
Abstract This paper compares the characters and lives of Emily Grierson, from William Faulkner's novel "A Rose for Emily", and Granny Weatherall ,from Katherine Anne Porter's novel "The Jilting of Granny Weatherall". The paper discusses the similar character traits the characters share and explains how both were affected by a similar, life-changing event in their youths that became the tragedy of their lives . The paper also contrasts how each character chose to deal with that tragedy, pointing out that Emily allowed her past to turn her into a depraved and perverse character, while Granny chose not to let her past dictate her life and instead built a life of warmth, dignity and compassion and understood that life was what you made of it, for better or for worse.
From the Paper "The two characters presented for comparison bare likeness to each other in several respects. Each are presented as strong-willed and defiant. They both were raised during an era where existed a strict southern code of manners and appearance. Unfortunately, this code is based on appearance rather than truth. Southern society placed great emphasis on a woman's conduct and each of the women acted according to this unwritten code. The secrets that they concealed and the demeanors they chose to display to society differ from reality. Emily Grierson's fa?ade of gentleness conceals her iron-willed strength capable of even murderous acts. Granny Weatherall is perceived as an ailing lady of forgotten memory and time. Both ladies were significantly affected by events in youth that became the tragedy of their lives. They were both jilted by their young loves. The difference between Emily and Granny lies in the effect this betrayal had upon the remainder of their existence."
