The characters in all of the literary works discussed here experience the elation of rising above whatever ails them on earth, but then being forced to fall back down to the harsh reality that they can never seem to fully escape. Additionally, in each of the works discussed here, ignorant bliss is portrayed is preferable to stark clarity. The primary difference between the poems and Keyes' novel, however, is that for Charlie, both ignorance and acumen are mixed blessings. For the poets, ignorant bliss is the prize waiting at the peak of their ascendance. For Henrik Ibsen, an entirely different journey life's ups and downs prevails.
Since the beginning of time, we have lived in a society in which women have been judged through the eyes of men. Commonly referred to as "the weaker sex," women have been told that they are different from men yet have been held to…...

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Works Cited

Berryman, John, "The Curse"  http://www.eliteskills.com/c/11530 

Berryman, John, "The Traveller"  http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/john-berryman/4278 

Ibsen, Henrik, Four Major Plays: A Doll House, the Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler, the Master Builder, Signet Book; Reissue edition, 1989

Keyes, Daniel, "Flowers for Algernon" Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1995

Civilization and the ilderness -- Early American Literature
The collision of society against the wilderness in the early stages of the development of America was used often as a theme in early American literature. As "civilization" arrived in the New orld and immediately encroached upon the natural world and the Native Americans who thrived in that New orld there were stories to be told to reflect the conflicts and relationships that occurred. This paper explores the dynamics in the civilization vs. wilderness binary expressed in four stories -- Roger Malvin's Burial, The Pioneers, Hope Leslie and Edger Huntly.

Do "civilization" and the "wilderness" mean or signify the same thing in each of these four works?

In a general way, civilization and the wilderness do signify the same thing in each of the four works, because no matter the different themes, setting, characters and conflicts that are presented, the man v. nature sidebar story…...

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Works Cited

Brown, Charles Brockden. Edgar Huntly, or Memoirs of a sleep-walker, Volume 3. London, UK;

Oxford University, 1803.

Cooper, James Fenimore. The Pioneers. Harvard University: G.P. Putnam, 1853.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel. Roger Malvin's Burial. Selected Stories. Ed. Brenda Wineapple.

Sleep is often a poetic euphemism for death; Utanapishtim even says as much when Gilgamesh finally catches up with him... "How alike are the sleeping and the dead..." In any event, Gilgamesh's foreboding deepens as they face the entrance to the forest.
Gilgamesh and Enkidu find and confront Humbaba, and Humbaba tries to pursuade Gilgamesh to make friends with it, but Enkidu advises him to kill it, for fearing the wrath of Shammash. Gilgamesh is having second thoughts about killing Humbaba, but Enkidu turns his ear and they do end up killing the monster. Of course, this angers all the gods except Shammash, who are finally provoked past the limits of patience when the duo kill the ull of Heaven which Ishtar petulantly lets loose on Uruk. However, unable to bring themselves to kill Gilgamesh, they focus on Enkidu instead and inflict him with a long terminal illness.

So it is…...

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Bibliography

Abusch, Tzvi. (2001). "The Development and Meaning of the Epic of Gilgamesh: an Interpretive Essay." Journal of the American Oriental Society 121.4: 614-622.

Jager, Bernd (2001). "The Birth of Poetry and the Creation of a Human World: an Exploration of the Epic of Gilgamesh." Journal of Phenomenological Psychology. 13.2: 131-154.

Carnahan, Timorthy (ed). "The Epic of Gilgamesh." March, 2005  http://www.ancienttexts.org/library/mesopotamian/gilgamesh

Racine's Phaedra -- Compared to Blake's "Lamb" and Melville's Billy Budd
As Bernard Grebanier states, Racine's Phaedra speaks "with the violence of life itself" (xiv). If one were to compare the French playwright's most famous female lead to the English-speaking world's most famous male lead (as Grebanier does), it would have to be to Hamlet, whose passionate assessment of life is likewise problematic. Indeed, Phaedra raises many themes, including the importance of origin, innocence, and sin -- themes that may be found in as seemingly disparate works as illiam Blake's "The Lamb" and Herman Melville's Billy Budd. hile Racine's Phaedra is the tale of a woman, torn by a passion that possesses her so cruelly that it destroys not only her life but the lives of others around her -- including the innocent man who is her obsession, Hyppolytus; Blake's poem deals with the triple theme of origin, innocence, and sin…...

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Works Cited

Blake, William. "The Lamb." Songs of Innocence and Experience. UK: Oxford

University Press, 1992. Print.

Grebanier, Bernard. Phaedra: An English Acting Version. NY: Barron's Educational

Series, 1958. Print.

Robert Bolano is the writer of the novel "By Night in Chile" published in 2000. Urrutia is the narrator of the novel and entire novel is narrated in the first person. Starting lines of the novel are "I am dying now, but I still have many things to say," and from this point the novel starts describing how Urrutia was able to enter the Chilean literary world.
The narrator of the novel, Urrutia Lacroix used the image of "the wizened youth," for himself which showed how much he struggled with his conscience, during the time when he was trapped in Opus Dei. The narrator has described his life as distorted because of the struggle he made throughout his life.

Narrator has used different styles to engage the readers. At time it was simple, lofty, intense, and believable however on occasion the narrator used harsh and imposing style to describe the story. This…...

Strength of the Human Spirit know why the Caged Bird Sings is an autobiography by Maya Angelou. It is the first book of the five volumes of the author's autobiography covering her life from the early 1930s up till 1970. This particular volume "I know why the Caged Bird Sings" is one of the most popular of the five volumes as it talks about her initial years as a child up to the time when she turns sixteen. The autobiography is based on her life as a black child, teenager and woman; it covers all elements of her family and their trials and tribulations.
Although the book is based on Angelous' life, it basically talks about the development of the human self and the impact of various experiences in life on the strength of the human spirit. As Angelou herself describes the reason for writing this book "somebody needs to…...

Shakespeare
Macbeth and the Struggle between Good and Evil

Like all of Shakespeare's tragedies, the action of Macbeth is based around the fatal flaw of the man who would otherwise be a hero. For Macbeth, his flaw is his ambition. He allows his ambition to drive him and this overcomes his reason. In doing so, he chooses the path of evil over the path of good. In the end though, he cannot live with his own choice and his good side becomes his underdoing. In this way, Macbeth is not only the story of a man choosing evil, but also the story of a man who cannot be driven to ignore his good side. This makes Macbeth a unique play because it shows both sides of the struggle between good and evil and makes it a human struggle. This major theme in the play is expressed in several ways. This will now…...

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Works Cited

Bradley, A.C. "The Witch Scenes in Macbeth." England in Literature. Eds. John Pfordesher, Gladys V. Veidemanis, and Helen McDonnell. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1991: 232-233.

Lamb, M.E. "Engendering the Narrative Act: Old Wives' Tales in The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, and The Tempest." Criticism 40.4 (1998): 529-553.

Shakespeare, W. Macbeth. New York: Penguin, 1999.

Not of the Same Feather: Cultural Appropriation in The Invention of Wings As problematic as it may be for a white Southern author to presume understanding of the psyche of a slave, Sue Monk Kidd embeds enough nuances in The Invention of Wings to make the fictionalized account of the Grimke sisters compelling and enlightening. Alternating between the voices of Hetty (Handful) and Sarah is the literary device Kidd relies on to demonstrate different perspectives and points of view, while also showing what Hetty and Sarah have in common too. In fact, Kidd shows how Sarah and Hetty develop the courage to rebel against social norms and even the law in order to make the world a better place. Symbolism also helps tie together the disparate worlds in which Hetty and Sarah live. Thick with symbolism related to the theme of flying and the freedom flight implies, The Invention of Wings…...

John esley Before Referencing
Supernatural tales of death and jealousy: Edgar Allen Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" and Robert Olen Butler's "Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot"

Both Edgar Allen Poe's "Masque of the Red Death" and Robert Olen Butler's "Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot" use supernatural plots to highlight the intense emotions human beings often feel about common and ordinary subjects, namely death and the loss of a loved one to someone else. Poe's tale is written in the style of American Romanticism, and uses highly ornate language and a European setting to create an atmosphere of death, misery and decay. Poe's tale begins strangely, and becomes even stranger as the narrative wears on. The final appearance by death as a masked figure at a costume ball makes the allegorical theme of the story horrifyingly real -- not even the wealthy can escape…...

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Works Cited

Butler, Robert Olen. "Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot." Fiction from Web Del Sol. 22 Feb 2008.  http://www.webdelsol.com/butler/rob-5.htm 

Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Masque of the Red Death." Online Literature. 22 Feb 2008.  http://www.online-literature.com/poe/36

Shop on the Main Street
Continental European film producers were slow to focus on political and social injustices as the dominant themes after World War II. Heroism in America and Soviet World War II movies was not a significant theme, primarily because, with the exclusion of Switzerland and Sweden, other countries' dwellers either were part of the Nazi regime or collaborated with the rule. Therefore, the filmmakers, when making films, focused on the societies' immersion in the totalitarian ruling systems. Similar to other countries of Europe, excluding Switzerland and Sweden, all other countries in central Europe lived under Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes in the period between the Second World War. However, after the war, the continent split, and this influenced how the filmmakers made films. Germans, Slovaks, Czechs and Hungary embraced the Nazi regime, whereas Austria and three quarters of Germany embraced democracy. This is partly a contributing factor as…...

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References

Crowther, B. (1966). The Shop on the Main Street (1965). Retrieved from  http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF1730E270BC4D51DFB766838D679EDE 

Votruba, M. (2011). The Shop on the Main Street: The holocaust in context. Retrieved from  http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/11635/3/Martin_Votruba-The_Shop_on_Main_Street_The_Holocaust_in_Context.pdf 

Banovac, S. (2005). JanKadar and Elmar Klos: The Shop on Main Street (Obchod na korze),

1965. Retrieved from  http://www.kinokultura.com/specials/3/obchod.shtml

Literary Analysis: Sue Monk Kidd’s The Invention of Wings Sue Monk Kidd uses symbol and theme in The Invention of Wings to tell the story of Sarah Grimke, her sister Nina and Sarah’s slave Handful, whom Sarah vows to help to freedom over the course of her life. The novel is based on the historical character of Sarah Grimke, an abolitionist and activist. To tell the story, Kidd uses the black triangles that Handful’s mother stitches into her quilts to symbolize flight and freedom; likewise, the feathers that Handful and her mother collect to stuff the quilt symbolize the spiritual wings with which one can fly to freedom. Kidd also applies the theme of power in both positive and negative terms: Sarah’s trauma at witnessing the brutality of slavery causes her to develop a stutter, which gives her a degree of powerlessness in terms of speaking her mind; likewise, her youth…...

unning head: LITEAY ANALYSIS4LITEAY ANALYSISA Literary Analysis of the Book Seabiscuit by Laura HillenbrandThe book Seabiscuit: An American Legend is a non-fiction book by Hillenbrand Laura about the racing glory and rise to fame of the character, Seabiscuit, who happens to be an American racehorse. The book is set during the stock market crash resulting in the Great Depression, where Seabiscuit rose to international fame as a racehorse. Hence, he becomes a symbol of hope for the American citizens during tough times. The book is a captivating tale of the racehorse and the two men who believed in his potential, Charles Howard and Tom Smith, who bought him from his previous owner Fitzsimmons. Through non-fiction, the author pushes the reader to use narrative elements that are primarily characteristic of fiction tales and novels, as situations and lives diverge and intersect. Thus, this paper seeks to provide a detailed literary analysis…...

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ReferenceHillenbrand, L. (2002). Seabiscuit: an American legend. Ballantine Reader’s Circle.

Thus, the term "a new start" came to embody a lofty ideal and it was considered to be more important from the simple fact that the respective period in history dealt with the particular issues addressed by people such as Thomas Paine. For instance, he tried, through his writing to give a new incentive for the people fighting for the independence from Britain and from this point-of-view he is remembered as an important figure of the era (Philip, 2005).
Without a doubt there are periods in history that are dominated by certain interpretations of the notion of "a new start." This is precisely due to the fact that the American literature, it its attempt to escape the influence and the stereotypes of the British creations, have searched for new sources of inspiration. In this sense, while in the British Isles the romantic view of the world was still predominant, in…...

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References

Funston, Judith E. (1990) "Authority, Autonomy, and Representation in American Literature, 1776-1865." By Mark R. Patterson. Review. The Journal of American History, Vol. 77, No. 2., pp. 650-651.

Kwok, Gordon. (2001) Civil War Poetry. 13 Feb 2008.  http://hometown.aol.com/gordonkwok/cwpoetry.html 

Larkin, Edward. (2008). Thomas Paine and the Literature of Revolution. Cambridge University Press.

Outline of American Literature. (2006). Democratic Origins and Revolutionary Writers, 1776-1820. USINFO.STATE.GUV website. 13 Feb 2008. http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oal/lit2.htm

.....female agency in Wang Anyi's "Granny" and Eileen Chang's "Shame Amah"
The objective of this study is to compare and contrast the work of Eileen Chang's with reference to her theme "Shame Amah" and the work of Wang Anyi focusing on her theme "Granny". The study uses their works of the two writers to analyze their differences and similarities in the writing styles focusing on the themes Shame of Amah and Granny. Remarkably, Zhang was in her early twenties when she had been identified as a discriminating and precious writer. She benefited from both classical Western and Chinese literature making her being one of the most renown Chinese writers in the literary world.

Similarly, Eileen Chang is one of the most talented Chinese writers born in 1921 and has published several collections of English stories as well publishing two English novels. Eileen Chang was born in Shanghai and attended the University of…...

Homecoming?
The principle theme in Jean hys' short story, "I Used to Live Here Once," is the prevalence of racism and the accompanying sentiment of elitism that it gives those of European ancestry. This theme was fairly common in hys' writing, which routinely "would explore the tension between the ordered world of colonial life and the seductive world of island sensuality" (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2004). hys' theme is supported on the strength of a pair of literary elements, foreshadowing and symbolism. A thorough examination of the text demonstrates that the author utilizes these two literary devices to reinforce her theme and indicate to the reader that the seemingly halcyon journey of figurative and literal remembrance is not as innocent as it appears.

hys utilizes copious amounts of foreshadowing to demonstrate that the narrator's journey to a house she used to live in represents more than that which is appears to.…...

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References

Savory, E. (2003). "Selective memory: white creole, nostalgia, Jean Rhys, and Side By Side." Journal of Caribbean Literatures. 3 (3): 17-25.

Encyclopedia of World Biography. (2004). "Jean Rhys." Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved from  http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Jean_Rhys.aspx

Oral Tradition:

Epic Poems: Ancient societies passed down stories of heroes, battles, and cultural myths through epic poems like the Iliad, Odyssey, and Mahabharata. These narratives laid the foundation for literary forms such as drama and novels.
Folk Tales and Legends: Oral storytelling also included folk tales, fables, and legends, which often contained moral lessons and reflected cultural values. These narratives inspired later literary genres such as children's literature and fantasy.

Written Records:

Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics: The development of writing systems in ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt enabled the recording and dissemination of stories, religious texts, and historical accounts. These written records....

1. Ichor explores the concept of identity through the protagonists struggle to reconcile his dual nature as a human and a god, highlighting the complexities of his identity.

2. The protagonists journey in Ichor serves as a metaphor for the internal conflict and search for self-identity that many individuals face, as he grapples with his divine lineage and mortal experiences.

3. Through the protagonists interactions with other characters who question his identity, Ichor underscores the external pressures and societal expectations that can influence ones sense of self.

4. The protagonists development throughout Ichor illustrates the fluid and dynamic nature of....

1. In Ichor by Trish D.W, the protagonist's journey through various realms symbolizes the multifaceted nature of identity, where each realm represents a different aspect of self, highlighting the theme of identity as a fluid and evolving construct.

2. The novel Ichor explores identity through the protagonist's struggle with their divine heritage versus their human upbringing, illustrating the conflict between destiny and personal choice in shaping one's identity.

3. Through the protagonist's interactions with characters from diverse backgrounds, Ichor delves into how identity is not only self-defined but also shaped by societal expectations and cultural narratives, emphasizing the external influences on personal....

Exploring Literary Themes and Concepts:

The Power of Love and Redemption in William Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice"
The Complexity of Heroism in Homer's "The Iliad"
The Role of Fate and Free Will in Fyodor Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment"
The Nature of Madness in Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre"
The Search for Meaning in Albert Camus' "The Stranger"

Analyzing Literary Characters and Perspectives:

Hamlet's Tragic Flaw and its Consequences
The Evolution of Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"
The Unreliable Narrator in J.D. Salinger's "The Catcher in the Rye"
The Relationship between Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton in Oscar....