Abstract In this article, the writer studies the book 'Massacre of the Dreamers' by the novelist, poet, and Chicana activist, Ana Castillo. The writer notes that Castillo offers an explicitly nationally and ethnically based form of feminism for Latina women that the author calls Xicanisma. The writer discusses that over the course of Castillo's historiography of the Chicana and feminist movements, Castillo combines personal as well as historical testimony to create a political and spiritual manifesto for Latina women today. Further the writer shows that Castillo condemns both the racism and negative assumptions that have limited Latina women from assuming power within their culture, even while she pays tribute to the considerable successes and accomplishments of Latinas in various Mexican activist movements.
From the Paper "Castillo is equally unsparing when condemning the misogyny of Mexican culture, even in its most radical forms, such as the American Chicano Movement. Beyond the ideologies of Catholicism and Communism that have denied the gender imbalance within the Mexican community and society, Castillo believes Chicana women must band together to articulate and find ways of healing and addressing their unique difficulties as a community. Only then will the feminine principle as well as machismo endemic to contemporary Mexican life once again find its space within Latino culture and spirituality."
"Castillo, however, does not deny the common assertion of the American women's movement that the personal is political. She states she had to look within herself to get beyond the dichotomies of masculine and feminine that hampered her ability to see herself fully as an activist, sexual being, and a spiritual female being."
Abstract This paper analyzes and contrasts two sonnets written respectively by the British WWI poets Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon: "The Soldier" and "Dreamers". The writer discusses how both poets modified the traditional structure of the sonnet to accomplish their poetic ends. Brooke's poem is elegiac in tone, focusing on national identity and acquiescing in death as a doorway to eternity, while Sassoon's is a bitter and ironic protest against the injustice and inhumanities of war.
From the Paper "Sassoon writes in a voice of protest, not acquiescence, unlike Brooke, despite his use of the sonnet form. "Dreamers" begins with a striking image, the image of soldiers going off to war, presumably by train to the front lines, rather than in the middle of an internalized thought like Brooke's poem. Brooke's poem focuses on an individual soldier who will be remembered, Sassoon's the vast, nameless masses of men who will die and be forgotten. Some of Sassoon's dreamers are good, some are bad, all have different problems and jealous conflicts at home, but they are in the process of being blended into one in the form of a purposeless army whose cause they can little understand."
Abstract This paper takes a look at James Joyce's "Ulysses" which was transformed from a novel into an opera. It analyzes the impact that each of these art forms has on the work and how the format changes. It provides a background of James Joyce's life and the background to his writing the novel. Within the novel itself, the "Siren Song" chapter is analyzed.
From the paper:
"Historians with idle time on their hands occasionally may indulge in moments of wishful revisionism. ?What if,? they say, "That young dreamer named Adolph Hitler had been accepted into art school" Wouldn"t the world be different"? History is littered with celebrities who, for better or worse, had as youngsters fervently wished to be doing something different than their allotted role. Among them was one James Joyce, who, as it so happened, wanted to be a musician. If Hitler had been an artist instead, he probably would have been drawing propaganda posters for a second World War that would have persisted without his figure head. If James Joyce has been a musician, would he still have created Ulysses? At first glance, of course one must say not. This book is, after all, celebrated as one of the best modern examples of the novel -- not an opera. However, if what we look for in Ulysses is not its obviously visible shape, but rather, its messages, its rhythms and stories and symbolisms, then it is entirely possible that it would be the same creation if it were suddenly transmutated into music."
Abstract This paper examines the use archetypes of ghosts and premonitions in Toni Morrison's "Beloved." It shows the influence of Dr. Carl Yung, and how the human psyche is easily manipulated. It explores the context and background of the story and how the use of archetypes plays into the character traits and storyline.
From the paper:
"'Dreaming men are haunted men,' wrote Stephen St. Vincent Benet, and the characters in Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' might well agree with the poet's statement. Of course, most of us are dreamers, and we therefore might well posit that we are haunted by dreams. What sets each of us apart is the things we dream about ? and so the things that we are haunted by. Our dreams ? our hauntings ? are specific to our own lives, our own experiences. But they may also be far more general than we suppose them to be, the result of what psychologist Carl Jung would call archetypes, a term made generally popular by Joseph Campbell in his exploration of commonalities that he discovered in the myths, religions, and arts of what are in many ways widely divergent cultures."
Abstract This essay draws on the similarities and comparisons between Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and Tim Burton's film, "Sleepy Hollow" with specific reference to the daydream scenes.
From the paper:
? Yet this daydream has no few of the aspects of a nightmare as well. In the real world, the worst Ichabod will ever endure is a fall from his faithful, and borrowed, steed Gunpowder. In the daydream film, he shall be skewered with a ghostly sword, beaten, choked, and otherwise bodily assaulted. The horsemen will not be a possible figment, a traveler who merely keeps pace and tosses pumpkins; to the contrary, he shall kill any number of people.?
This paper describes the life and works of one of mankind's greatest thinkers, dreamers, and artistic visionaries, including lengthy descriptions of his life, major works, inventions and philosophical outlook on life are provided.
Abstract This paper chronicles the life and works of one of history's greatest human beings, Leonard da Vinci. From his birth and early childhood induction into the world of the arts to through to his later years as an inventor, engineer, and humanitarian this paper provides an in depth account of how he became one of history's greatest artists, thinkers, and visionaries. A detailed account is given of several of his most famous painting and sculptures, as well as his more creative and advanced inventions. His personal life is documented as well, from birth to death.
From the Paper "It only takes a single spark to ignite an inferno. In the summer of 1451 outside Florence, Italy, a brief affair between a public notary and local peasant girl would produce a result that would forever impact the human spheres of art and ingenuity. A result powerful enough to move rivers and build castles, yet graceful enough to create indisputable works of artistic genius, and soft enough to display truly naked acts of kindness and compassion. On April 15, 1452, nine months after this affair, the babe Leonardo from the small village Anchiano, near Vinci, was born."
Abstract This paper views the works of Edith Wharton and Gustave Flaubert and identifies the failure to find love in their respective novels. It analyzes the actions of the novels' main characters in terms of romantic love. Ethan and Emma are two frustrated dreamers who are lead to a tragic death when love cannot be obtained.
From the Paper "A successful novel is one that conveys a concise emotion through theme. When realistic feelings are perceived from a book, the reader is more able to understand and identify with the story. Two novels, Madame Bovary and Ethan Frome, share the theme of failure in similar parabolas of love. The characters in Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary and Edith Wharton's Ethan Frome all illustrate failure to find and maintain meaningful relationships and the subsequent effects this has on their lives throughout their respective novels."
Tags: failure, love, romance, death, romantic, relationship, emotion, l
Abstract This paper describes the life of the Underground Man in Dostoevsky's work, "Notes from the Underground". It analyzes his ways of thought from a naturalist perspective. The paper shows how the Underground Man is a romantic dreamer, living in a fantasy world and unable to make his own decisions.
From the Paper "Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground is a critical commentary and rebellion from the traditional romantic view that had been so popular in previous eras. Dostoevsky belongs to the naturalist and realist school of thought, which emphasize the idea that life is hard and complex, and we must deal with it. This contrasts with the romantic thoughts regarding life as simple, beautiful and correlated to nature. In his work Dostoevsky uses each of these conflicting views to build the mindset of the protagonist known as the Underground Man (UM). The UM is a very intricate individual. While he is very shy and reserved, he deeply craves attention. He desperately wants to succeed, but is constantly setting himself up for failure. He feels superior to others by recognizing he own inferiority. It seems that the UM's life is full of contradictions and it is this life that are meant to represent human nature."
Abstract The paper examines the issue of racism in Mark Twain's
"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". It discusses the controversy which has surrounded this novel for some time, largely because of the setting--the South--and the inclusion of the black man Jim, a slave who is seen by some as a stereotyped house slave always ready to do the bidding of white masters. The paper argues that this is a wrong reading of the book, which is structured in a way that brings Jim into equal prominence with the main character, Huckleberry Finn, and elevates him in terms of native intelligence about the dreamer and romantic, Tom Sawyer. It shows that there is no doubt that Twain is depicting a racist society, for that is what he saw when he looked around at the South of his day. He suggests this through several different characters who are found along the journey undertaken by Huck and Jim. The fact that the novel includes racism does not make it racist itself. The paper shows that another reason why some charge that the book is racist is because of the use of the word "nigger" throughout the book. The author of the paper surmizes that whether the book is seen as combating or reinforcing racist attitudes depends on how much understanding the reader brings to the task of reading the book.
From the Paper "This contrast persists in terms of racial attitudes as well. At first, Huck accepts the way society views slaves. However, the more he travels with Jim down the river, the more he comes to see Jim as a human being. This causes the boy great pain because of the way he has been raised, and here Twain shows graphically how racist attitudes are passed down through the generations. Nichols shows in his essay that Twain saw society as a force that could overcome the natural innocence and goodness Twain believed Americans possessed. Nichols suggests that the book says much that is valuable about the society of the time even though it also exaggerates other elements."
Abstract This paper is about Sigmund Freud's concept of 'unconscious' and its relevance in the arts. The author discusses how Freud is commonly recognized as having invented the concept of the "unconscious". The author explaines that the subordination of the "pleasure principle" by the "reality principle" is done through a mental process that Freud refers to as sublimation. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams and fantasies (or phantasies) are the symbolic expression and fulfillment of wishes and desires that as a result of sublimation by the "reality principle" cannot be fulfilled through daily life and are consequently repressed into the ?unconscious.? To Freud, "the motive forces of fantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single fantasy is the fulfillment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality" (Freud 485). Freud affirms that dreams are disguised, hallucinatory fulfillment's of repressed wishes. He concludes that if expressed in undisguised form, they would be so disturbing that it would wake the dreamer from sleep. Freud's fundamental assumption is that the sublimation of the artist's unsatisfied libido is responsible for producing all forms of art and literature whether it be painting, sculpting, or writing. David H. Richter notes in his introduction to "Sigmund Freud" that Freud was once criticized by Carl Gustav Jung, a fellow psychoanalytic theorist, for insinuating that artists were diseased individuals creating art out of their own personal neurotic needs. The writer feels that Freud insinuates that art is primarily an escapist method, that "in an ideal world in which everyone had matured sufficiently to replace the pleasure principle by the reality principle, there would be no need for art" (Storr 103).
From the Paper "The historical tradition of scholarly theory has been one in which literary texts are subjected to scrutiny regarding whether they are either implicitly or explicitly ideological in nature. Arguably so, nothing reflects a society's fears, hopes, and desires about gender, class, and power more than what the society maintains about art and artists. A literary text is credible of fully reflecting the culture in which it was written, that is to say, it has the potential to embody certain sociological assumptions presented in the dichotomy between "normal" and ?abnormal.? Sigmund Freud, the patriarch of psychoanalysis, is associated with Charles Darwin and Karl Marx as being "one of the three original thinkers who have most altered man's view of himself in the twentieth century" (Storr 145). Yet, even literary theorists, including Freud, realized that "any comprehensive vision of human nature such as he provides must have implications for the nature of happiness, and for the relation of man's natural capacities to his normal or ideal state" (Sousa 196). That is, numerous later theorists and critics believe that Freud's own theories about the function and nature of the mind uncovered some fundamental truths about how an individual's notions of "self" are formed and how culture and civilization operate and are affected by these notions. Coinciding with Freud's own account, the significance of everyday action is determined by motives that are far more numerous and complex than people are aware of or commonsense understanding takes into account. The most basic and constant of motives that influence our actions are those of the unconscious, moreover, those that are difficult to acknowledge or avow. Freud's conception of the unconscious and his rediscovery of the importance of dreams encouraged painters, sculptors and writers to pay serious attention to their inner world of dreams; to find significance in thoughts and images they previously would have dismissed as absurd or illogical. Therefore it is plausible that notions of art and literature as described by Sigmund Freud, are created through the ramifications of the unconscious or the sublimation of an unsatisfied carnal appetite."
Abstract Generally, European poetry from the Romantic period is characterized by the following poetic features: a belief in the innate goodness of human nature; individualism; a reverence for nature and primitivism; philosophical idealism; a (somewhat paradoxical) preference for free thought and religious mysticism; rebellious with political authority and social customs (and note the class bias, of course); a celebration of physical, sensual passions; the active cultivation of emotion, and sensitivity, as values in-themselves. Romantics tended to believe that to be human meant being an emotional, sensitive, and rational person.
Abstract The purpose of this paper is to introduce, discuss, and analyze two works, "The Chrysanthemums" by John Steinbeck and "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather. Specifically, it discusses a thematic connection between the two stories. It looks at how both short stories highlight the themes of loneliness, unfulfilled desires, and dreams and how both main characters have dreams of something better that are never realized; they live tragic and unfulfilled lives because of this. It also discusses how, although these stories might not seem related, underneath two very different characters is the same basic problem, a dreamer's soul that is unfulfilled and desperately unhappy with real life.
From the Paper "The theme of loneliness, unfulfilled desires, and dreams is woven throughout this entire story, and it leads to the inevitable conclusion that often comes from living in a dream world. Paul's dreams outweigh his life, and he can never live up to the dreams he has set up for himself. He cannot cope with his real life; he finds it ugly and depressing. "He approached it tonight with the nerveless sense of defeat, the hopeless feeling of sinking back forever into ugliness and commonness that he had always had when he came home" (Cather ). Once he leaves his home in Pittsburgh, he can never return, because he has lived the good life, and he can never return to the drab life of his family. There is something inside Paul that can never be satisfied with second best or second rate, which is why he loves the theater and the fantasy of it so much."
Abstract This essay deals with the way that race is an issue in three modern utopian or distopian art pieces, David Brin's "Kiln People", the recent movie release of "Lord of the Rings", and the "Star Trek" television series. The paper explains that these three sources have been selected because all three of them are among the most popular of recent works in their respective genres, and each presents a strong utopian vision which, on the surface, is devoid of racism and may even present anti-racist messages, but at its center actually deals with serious issues of race and ethnicity.
From the Paper "Even before Moore, though, philosophers such as Plato created imaginary societies that showed the problems and the potential of the world. The earliest Utopias were probably places like Plato's Republic, which while not overtly racist did include stratification into slaves and masters and a "myth" that different people were born of essentially different qualities . Writing about Utopia was resumed seriously during the Renaissance, as interest in ideal government and long-lost cultures was renewed. (Donough) It became extremely prominent as a form of fiction, in addition to being philosophical, during the Victorian age and through the early 1900s. This was when science fiction was first being pioneered by people like Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, (Wagner) and they were among the first to integrate Utopian and Dystopian story-lines into their fiction. For example, Well's The Time Machine, includes a very Dystopian idea of the future in which all humans are split into two competing and incomplete races."
Abstract This is a brief book review of Hart's book about the man behind the artist, Leonardo da Vinci. The paper explains that da Vinci had several other interests besides art work; he was a scientist, he managed to dream up methods of flight, and was also enthralled by engineering.
From the Paper "Leonardo's work as a scientist is too well known, nowadays, to say that reading Hart's book for a contemporary student of the period fundamentally shakes his or her conceptions of Leonardo as an artist alone. However, rather than merely reinforcing the image of Leonardo as a quintessential master of all the disciplines, the reader emerges with a more balanced perspective of the Renaissance integration of science, theology, and art in the mind of Leonardo?an integration that in today's highly specialized times seems enviable."
Abstract Lucid dreaming is a paradoxical mental state in which dreamers become aware that they are dreaming and, in some cases, deliberately take control of the dream action. This paper provides an overview of why humans sleep and dream, an examination of what lucid dreams are, and their relevance to psychologists and other clinicians today. A discussion of the potential adverse consequences identified by some critics is followed by a summary of the research in the conclusion.
Outline
Introduction
Review and Discussion
Why Do Humans Sleep and Dream Anyway?
What Are Lucid Dreams? Cheap Thrills or Divine Insight?
Learning How to Dream Lucidly
Relevance of Lucid Dreaming to Psychology
"Completely Risk-Free" or Not?
Improving Accessibility to Lucid Dreaming
Conclusion
From the Paper "Because everyone dreams, it would seem easy enough to classify the experience as being "ordinary," and yet the dream experience itself can seem to be anything but "ordinary." Researchers have been investigating why animals sleep and have attempted to determine the biological role of dreams. Lucid dreaming means dreaming while knowing that you are dreaming. This consciousness allows people to guide their dreams and explore a potentially infinite number of possibilities. A staunch lucid dream advocate and researcher, Dr. Stephen LaBerge, even maintains that lucid dreaming may help people heal faster and enjoy other benefits, including aiding personal-development, enhancing self-confidence, overcoming nightmares, improving mental (and perhaps, physical) health, facilitating creative problem solving as well as providing "thrilling entertainment." In all fairness, it should be pointed out that LaBerge is also hawking DreamLights and other devices designed to help people learn how to dream lucidly at as much as $1,000 a pop -- and he has sold a lot of them."
