Abstract
This paper discusses the book "Notes of a Desolate Man" by Zhu Tianwen and relates that the author's way of fitting in so many non-Chinese influences, past and present, his homosexuality, and the death of an old friend in Japan due to AIDS, fit together to produce a deliberately disjointed psychic environment in which the narrator can only feel thankful for small reminders of a world that seemed normal. The writer points out that throughout "Notes on a Desolate Man", the past continues to be mixed up with the present. The writer believes that this book leaves the reader with no doubt as to the narrator's emotions, sense of being displaced and that his life has been rather pointless, though one wishes the narrator could also see through this state of ennui to find the answers of purpose that were suitable for modernists.

From the Paper
"Like many a post-modern character, the narrator, Xiao Chao, can observe his own isolation, well aware of what is happening, amid Western consumerism and media influences. His friend, Ah Yao, is a former lover, a person with whom he has been able to discuss Chinese poetry but also the culture arriving from the West including 1960s avant garde films and thought. Set in the 1990s, Xiao Shao reflects on his 20s as a well to do young Taiwanese in Europe and in America just as countless other persons at mid-life tend to reflect on how they spent this earlier interval in their lives. Like Ah Yao, he had known the gay scene in New York, Paris and Rome, and also the complications of being a gay Chinese male in a conservative Taiwanese society where both men's families were known in Taipei."

Tags:homosexuality, Japan, Chinese, post-modern, change, society

Abstract
In the view of this writer, Paulo Coehlo's, "The Alchemist", is a story founded upon Christian (and Islamic) values prizing humanity, beneficence and charity. For one thing, the people who help Santiago achieve his destiny - the Old Palm Reader or Gypsy, the Old King, and The alchemist, to name but three individuals - give him invaluable advice and insight while (with the exception of the Gypsy) asking nothing for themselves. Furthermore, the paper discusses how the Old King in the book is clearly inspired by Coehlo's reading of the Bible and it may be said that, just as the Tree of Life in Genesis gives eternal life, so too does the Elixir of Life carried about by the Alchemist give those who imbibe it the capacity to never fall ill; it is also true that the alchemist is one speck of life that wanders a desert filled with death and desolation. In any case, the paper shows how what all of these individuals have in common is that they help Santiago find the full life that awaits one when he or she finds his Personal Legend - as opposed to the half-death that follows those who shy away from the pursuit of their dreams.

From the Paper
"In the view of this writer, Paulo Coehlo's, "The Alchemist", is a story founded upon Christian (and Islamic) values prizing humanity, beneficence and charity. For one thing, the people who help Santiago achieve his destiny - the Old Palm Reader or Gypsy, the Old King, and The alchemist, to name but three individuals - give him invaluable advice and insight while (with the exception of the Gypsy) asking nothing for themselves. Furthermore, the Old King in the book is clearly inspired by Coehlo's reading of the Bible (he is really a biblical character that first appears...)"

Tags:alchemist, charity, realization

Abstract
The paper describes the 1972 Pulitzer citation accolade under the photograph that reads; "A lone GI in Vietnam captures the loneliness and desolation of war." The paper asserts that it appears to be a deserving photograph for this award, and this is especially true seeing that the photograph was taken during the long, pointless, devastating Vietnam War. The paper relates that the photograph sends a strong anti-war message; war is depressing, hopeless and just plain pointless and wrong.

From the Paper
"http://www.kennerly.com/portfolio/awards/: This is the photograph that won the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism for Feature Photography, 1972. The Kennerly's 1972 Pulitzer citation accolade under it reads that "A lone GI in Vietnam captures the loneliness and desolation of war." It appears to be a deserving photograph for this award. This is especially true seeing that the photograph was taken during the long, pointless, devastating Vietnam War. The photograph sends a..."

Tags:art, photograph, pulitzer

Abstract
This paper explores the similarities between James Baldwin's theme of education in his story "Sonny's Blues" and the documentary "Boys for Baraka". The paper discusses how education serves as an important tool which can be utilized to escape the desolation of one's current situations and enter into a better life. The paper shows how these stories use the theme of education to represent its importance within the context of modern day life.

Tags:education, escape, analysis

Abstract
This paper seeks to explore the extent to which the Hn~a hn~u of Hidalgo, Mexico and Clearwater, Florida, are victims of the current global trend of shedding the original culture and moving toward new cultural spaces. The paper explains that the Hn~a hn~u people have successfully pursued the problems of desolation and abject poverty; however, facing them now is the challenge of globalism and modernization at the expense of detruncating their cultural elements. The paper refers to E. Schmidt's 2007 article, "Whose Culture? Globalism, Localism, and the Expansion of Tradition: The Case of the Hn~a hn~u of Hidalgo, Mexico and Clearwater, Florida." The article asserts that the Hn~a hn~u are avoiding fragmentation of their native culture by using their native traditions to help them modernize.

Outline:
Purpose
Thesis
Main Points
Analysis
Verdicts
References

From the Paper
"The once marginalized Hn~a hn~u people are now subjected to the forces of modernity and globalism. With technological advancement, the Hn~a hn~u people now have a relatively better access to electricity, phones and other modes of communication, thus easing and promoting knowledge through interacting with other communities. A study by Schmidt, (2007) postulates that people's "degree of access to the outside world" determines their exchange levels for cultural elements."

Tags:native, people, marginalization, fragmentation

Abstract
This paper analyzes William Blake's poem "London," which explores misery and suffering as something that negatively affects all of mankind. The writer explains that this poem is about human desolation and despair during the industrial revolution and describes how, in four short stanzas, Blake manages to describe the tension that exists both between man and society, and between mankind and nature. The poetic techniques used by Blake in "London" are examined and the symbolism and implications of the poem are explained.

From the Paper
"The poem London makes you feel desolate, it makes you feel desperate. Blake's most powerful visual image in the poem is his "mind-forg'd manacles." In Blake's day, the criminal element wore shackles on their hands and feet as they walked shuffling from court to prison and back or from prison to ships that would take them to penal colonies in Australia. In line eight of the poem Blake makes his most important point; the problems mankind faces aren't problems that came to man from God, the problems mankind faces aren't problems that come from nature, the problems mankind faces are caused by man and man alone."

Tags:institution, control, demoralization, capitalism, sinful, reiteration, oppressive

Abstract
The author states that despite critics' sometimes negative reviews, Hemingway was a major American writer, a winner of the Noble prize who could claim literary greatness. He continues that many of Hemingway's works are classics of American literature. The selected reviews refer to some of these classics. The author writes that Hemingway's ability to capture the essence of the despair and desolation of his generation is his major achievement.

From the Paper
"Although critics have offered praise and blame for Hemingway's writing, raved about successes, and panned failures, the consensus must be that he is a major American writer who can claim literary greatness. In 1925, when he was not yet twenty-six, his first short story collection, In Our Time, was reviewed in The New York Times. An anonymous critic described his prose as "lean, pleasing, with tough resilience," "fibrous," "athletic," "fresh," "hard," and "clean," as if an athlete, not a book, was being reviewed. Hemingway's style was so different, that new ways had to found to describe it. Hemingway's 1961 New York Times obituary echoed the early review, describing his "lean and sinewy prose," and his "laconic, understated dialogue"."

Tags:literary, critics, american, writer, noble, prize, between, wars, generation, realist, narrative, voice

Abstract
This paper focuses on the use of location as a metaphor in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby". The writer points out that the first metaphor used involves West Egg and East Egg, which are used to show the distance between the two main characters, Gatsby and Daisy. The writer then looks at the location of the valley of ashes as a metaphor for desolation and loneliness. The paper concludes that the metaphors are used to represent either the qualities of the characters or the themes of the novel.

From the Paper
"The first metaphor occurs with West Egg and East Egg, two egg-shaped islands lying opposite each other and separated by a bay. West Egg is the island where Gatsby lives and also the less fashionable of the two islands. While West Egg is less fashionable, it is also the more real of the two islands. This includes that it is the island where the narrator Nick lives in a small rented bungalow. West Egg still has its share of mansions but there is also a sense of reality to the place. In contrast, East Egg is all mansions, with the sense of elite making it the least real of the two islands."

Tags:west, east, egg, ashes, valley, daisy, location, metaphor

Abstract
The paper examines how Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," "The Killers," and "The Sun Also Rises" demonstrate his ability to express his disillusionment and desolation. The paper outlines Hemingway's background and the effects of World War I on him and shows how love, loss and depression eventually caused him to take his life. The paper explores how Hemingway's works reflect these moments of emptiness, despair and the thought that there is no purpose in life.

From the Paper
"Ernest Hemingway is known throughout literature as an author of few words. This technique is Hemingway's trademark for he had the ability to speak volumes in as few words as possible. Hemingway gives the reader room to interpret through a variety of characters, settings, and plots. Many of his stories focus on despair and nothingness and he is notorious for being a member of the "lost" generation. His life experiences and his creative spark worked together to create a lasting impression in literature. Many of Hemingway's stories revolve the idea of despair, nothingness, isolation, and hopelessness. Through very little words, Hemingway allows to see inside the human psyche."

Tags:depression, love, loss, nihilism

Abstract
This paper discusses "Dover Beach" and "The Buried Life," two poems by the Victorian English poet Matthew Arnold which highlight his position between the Romanticists before him and the Modernists who would follow him. The writer discusses the conflict between humanism and traditional Christian beliefs in Arnold's work, and how he seems to voice the human response to both through a sense of desolation in the realization of the inadequacy of his art to express the essential divorce of man from both the spiritual and the natural. After a brief analysis of both poems, the paper concludes that, not surprisingly, not long after writing "Dover Beach," Arnold withdrew to writing Christian responses and criticism.

From the Paper
"Key in his writing is the divorce in man from his spirituality. It's a concern that he expands to include society's desolation from a Christian God and, more, how the works of man - including Arnold's poetry - are doomed to be insufficient in expressing both the individual's sense of nostalgia for a prelapsarian mode and his yearning for a perhaps impossible-to-recapture state of grace. It's not too much to use Arnold's work to encompass the greater scope of consideration that man's fall into knowledge and experience is irrevocable and, in a way, unforgivable. "

Tags:humanist, immortality, ambivalence, self-pity, hopelessness, faith, Carlyle