Abstract
This paper provides six essays; three on playwrights and the other three on one play from each of the authors. The playwrights and plays are: 1) Tennessee Williams ("The Glass Menagerie"); 2) Arthur Miller ("Death of a Salesman"); and 3) Samuel Beckett ("Endgame").

From the Paper
""The Glass Menagerie" is a tragedy that illustrates Tennessee Williams' themes of thwarted desire and isolation in the characters of Amanda, Laura and Tom Winfield. If Tom is the protagonist in the play aware house worker who longs to become a writer and break free of his mother's smothering attentions then his mother Amanda is the antagonist who seeks to control her children's lives as a means of living vicariously through them. A former spoiled Southern belle in her adolescence Amanda refuses to accept..."

Tags:South, illusions, mental illness, desire, homosexuality, Communism, HUAC, witch hunts, American Dream, suicide, failure, Great Depression, existentialism, WWII, meaning, death

Abstract
This paper first explains that the film "Almost Famous", a coming-of-age film based on writer and director Cameron Crowe's teenage years when he fulfills his desire to be a rock critic write for the "Rolling Stone" magazine. Next, the author describes in detail and analyzes the context, plot, characters, themes, motifs and symbols. The paper concludes by relating the style and cinematography used in this film.

Table of Contents:
Essay Questions
Title
Director
Link of the movie to IMDB
Context
Summary and Analysis
Characters
William Miller- Played by Patrick Fugit
Description
Analysis
Russell Hammond - Played by Billy Crudup
Description
Analysis
Elaine Miller- Played by Frances McDormand
Description
Analysis
Penny Lane- Played by Kate Hudson
Description
Analysis
Lester Bangs- Played by Philip Seymour Hoffman
Description
Analysis
Ben Fong-Torres- Played by Terry Chen
Description
Analysis
Anita Miller- Played by Zooey Deschanel
Description
Dennis Hope- Played by Jimmy Fallon
Description
Analysis
Jeff Bebe- Played by Jason Lee
Description
Saphire Loveson- Played by Fairuza Balk
Description
Polexia Aphrodisia- Played by Anna Paquin
Description
Larry Fellows- Played by Mark Kozelek
Description
Ed Vallencourt- Played by John Fedevich
Description
Themes
Becoming Friends with the Rock Stars
Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll
Journalist as the Enemy
Motifs
Living One's Dreams
Isolation
Disappointment
Symbols
Rock and Roll Record Albums
Drugs
Doris the Bus
Style and Cinematography

From the Paper
"William Miller is the key figure in Almost Famous. The film is told through his eyes. From the very beginning of Almost Famous, William is an outsider. Because he's skipped two grades in school, he doesn't fit in with his peers. But even though he's younger than the others, William is far more mature. He doesn't just read underground rock and roll magazines, he writes for them. More importantly, he strives for yet more success, not letting the fact that he's only 15 years old hold him back. Shy and quiet, yet also highly motivated, William arranges to meet Lester Bangs, an infamous music critic."

Tags:conflict, rock and roll, drugs foreshadowing bus

Abstract
This paper is written about famous women and immigrants. From the beginning of American history women have played an active role in seeking rights for immigrants, African Americans, and their own rights.

Abstract
This paper depicts Tennessee Williams's life from birth to death. It also summarizes and analyzes two of his most famous plays and relates them to Williams's life.

From the Paper
"Tennessee Williams wrote some of America's most famous plays. His life was riddled with obscurity and pain. He had an absent father, an eccentric mother, and a mentally ill sister. Tennessee used his writing as a form of escape and reflection of his life. Two of his most famous plays, "The Glass Menagerie" and "A Streetcar Named Desire", are perfect examples of his literary talents and use of incorporating his own life into his scripts."

Tags:outcasts, thomas, lanier, playwright, the, poker, night, homosexual, st., louis, wingfield

Abstract
An in-depth analysis of four main characters in two of Shakespeare's plays. This essay details Anthony and his inner conflict between his longing to rule the Roman Empire and his strong love for Cleopatra. It also details the very fickle and dramatic character of Cleopatra and the many versatile parts she can play. It includes a brief discussion of the overwhelming love between Romeo and Juliet as well as their families' feud. Finally, it compares the plays and their characters.

From the Paper
"Antony is a man in conflict throughout this play. He struggles between his need to rule the Roman Empire, and his great love for Cleopatra. When he with Cleopatra, she is the only thing that matters. He says in the first act, "Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch / Of the ranged empire fall" (Cohen, Howard, and Greenblatt I.i.35-36). In just a few moments however, he worries that his love will cause him to "lose [him]self in dotage" (Cohen, Howard, and Greenblatt I.ii.106) and then he is afraid that his wife had died because of him, and that this is just one ill befalling because of his "idleness." He has a hard time deciding whether to follow his passion, and stay with Cleopatra, or follow his duty, and return to Rome."

Tags:Roman, Empire, love, play

Abstract
It is an accepted human weakness that we are not happy with the things we possess. There is a constant desire to achieve and obtain more. This paper shows how Marlowe, in his "Complete Plays", stresses this very issue by presenting three separate characters in three separate plays, all with the same tragic flaw. Each character, namely, Dido, Tamburlaine, and Dr. Faustus, exhibit a desire for the unattainable, and the plays depict their struggle and inevitable failure to obtain the impossible. In using his characters and demonstrating their flaws, Marlowe is providing a social commentary on the culture of that time.

From the Paper
"In Dido's case the unattainable is Aeneas. Her desire to love Aeneus and have him reciprocate this love is so great she would abdicate her throne declaring, "now bring him back, and thou shalt be a queen. And I will live a private life with him"(Dido, Act. V sc. i line:197-98). Yet sadly the forces of destiny and fate overpower Dido and her strong love for Aeneas. While the two may share in their affection for each other, the fate of Aeneas is not to marry Dido, but rather to found the city of Rome an ocean away. Yet Dido pleads with Aeneas and in some ways fate to remain in Carthage. The importance of Aeneas to the future of Rome, his destiny, takes precedence over his relationship with Dido. Dido, nonetheless, does nothing but counter what is already destined to transpire. In fighting for Aeneas Dido is fighting against an immutable destiny, a fight that culminates with her suicide. Yet with her dying words she invokes the very fate that destroyed her decreeing, "and from mine ashes let a conqueror rise, that may revenge this treason to a queen by ploughing up his countries with the sword"(Dido, Act.V sc.i line:306-08)."

Tags:aeneas

Abstract
This paper presents a discussion about family life using two plays as the backdrop for the discussion. The plays discussed are Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun" and Sam Shepard's "True West".

Tags:different, strokes, folks

Abstract
In a number of his plays, William Shakespeare uses magic as a driving force moving the action of the play forward. This paper discusses how this is certainly true in two of his famous comedies, "The Tempest" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and how, it is also true, in a somewhat different way in his greatest tragedy, "Hamlet".

From the Paper
"A Midsummer Night's Dream (MSN in following citations) is also a play filled with magic. This play involves essentially three sets of characters: the Athenian workmen, the young lovers (Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius), and the fairies. The fairies are, of course, magical beings, and their interaction with one another and with the various humans drives the play. Interestingly, for all their more-than-natural powers, the fairies are prey to a most human emotion, jealousy. Titania has quitted her marriage bed because Oberon has become too fond of a young boy he sought as a page of honor. (MSN, II, i, 118-21) Stung by Titania's jealousy, Oberon plots a mischievous revenge. "

Tags:fairies, ghost, bottom

Abstract
This paper discusses Ben Jonson's famous play, "Epicoene or The Silent Woman." The paper analyzes the plot and the characters of the play. It discusses the style in which "Epicoene or The Silent Woman" is written and its structure of an overlapping array of plots that essentially subsume one another throughout the course of the play. The paper looks at Jonson's purpose in the play and its success.

From the Paper
"There is also the sexual sub-plot, which is skillfully woven into the play. Truewit and Clerimont assert halfway through that the play seems to be a mere repetition of previous dramatic forms. But Dauphine, at the end of the play, reveals that he is one step further than the rest of the characters when he reveals Epicoene's true gender. Thus, Dauphine comes closest at this point to the role that the author, Jonson, has been playing throughout - as the author is always one step ahead of the audience. Again, Elizabethan conventions of dramatic form are exposed, ridiculed, and discarded in favor of a more open-ended, modern approach to the question of gender. An Elizabethan audience would not have questioned the fact that Epicoene was being played by a boy, as this was a norm during the Elizabethan period. But by exposing Epicoene as a transvestite at the end of the play, Dauphine - and Jonson, by extension - effectively disrupts this norm - the very sort of norm that would be upheld by Morose, who is the ultimate victim of this deception."

Tags:structure, audience, satire

Abstract
This paper looks at Shakespeare's famous play "Hamlet" from different
perspectives, as it has been re-enacted throughout history. It pays close attention to the movie versions of "Hamlet". The paper starts out with a brief biography of Shakespeare himself and also summarizes and provides an overview of "Hamlet" as a play, its plot, major characters and main theme. The paper then goes on to look at three actors who have played the character Hamlet in movies over the last few decades: Kenneth Branagh, Mel Gibson and Ethan Hawke. The paper provides a brief biography, examines each actor's performance, and looks at other details about each film. The paper then looks at the author's personal reaction to each of the movies and actors.

Paper Outline:
Introduction
Shakespeare Biography
Overview of Hamlet
Kenneth Branagh
Mel Gibson
Ethan Hawke
Reaction to Performances
Conclusion
Works Cited

From the Paper
"But "Hamlet" is not an action movie; it is a tragedy. In comparing the
1990 movie to Shakespeare's original play, we see that the director has taken some liberties to speed up the action by eliminating certain scenes, some of which seem easily disposed of. These edited out scenes include much of Shakespeare's comic relief. Other scenes seem to be missing from the movie version, mainly the important political
subplots that explain the movements of many of the characters in the play".

Tags:Elizabethan, comic, Claudius, Polonious, Ophelia