Charles Dickens Essays (Examples)

His clothes were untidy, but he had a commanding short-collar on." (Charles Dickens (1812-1870): (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/)Dora, David's first wife, expires and he marries Agnes. He seeks his vocation as a journalist and later as a novelist. (Charles Dickens (1812-1870): (www.kirjasto.sci.fi/)

GEAT EXPECTATIONS in 1860-61 started as a serialized publication in Dickens's periodical All the Year ound on December 1, 1860. The story of Pip or Philip Pirrip was among Tolstoy's and Dostoyevsky's preferred novels. Pip, an urchin, lives with his old sister and her husband. He comes across a runaway convict named Abel Magwitch and assists him against his wish. Magwitch is summoned up and Pip is taken care of Miss Havisham. He falls in love with the merciless Estella, Miss Havisham's ward. With the help of an unknown supporter, Pip is correctly educated, and he becomes a snob. Magwitch turns out to be the supporter; he dies and Pip's great…

Charles Dickens' Great Expectations is a novel about the formation of the self in relation to childhood. In this tale, we are met by Pip, first a young boy taken under the wing of a felon who places him with a delusional old maid, then a snobbish young man with expectations of being a member of the aristocracy, and finally as a humbled man who has learned the lesson of humility. Childhood is a time in which what we are and do then determines in great part who we will become. Dickens, clearly, employs a significant amount of his own past and dreams for this novel. The themes of good and evil, of right and wrong, of sadness and happiness are all played right along side of each other in a demonstration that life rarely follows a straight and narrow path, that it is important to experience a fall from…

The wide variety of music styles and the wide varieties of people came together for a new experience that redefined a generation and created an understanding that whatever their differences, the similarities were more important. Part of this may well have been the impact of the many assassinations of that time: those at the concert were ready to see the country produce something good and positive.

CONCLUSION

According to police records, in spite of a lack of sanitary facilities, food, and clean water, and in spite of a lot of drug use, there were only two deaths at the Woodstock concert. Police reports also note two births at the concert (Woodstock Festival & Concert, PAGE), something probably seen as having cosmic significance by some at the concert. For four days, nearly half a million people built their own little nation, established their own cultural rules, and survived living in markedly…

Charles Dickens, "Oliver Twist," "Nicholas Nickleby," and "A Christmas Carol." Specifically, it will discuss the use of prevalent themes throughout the three novels. There are many themes present in these three works by Charles Dickens, from good vs. evil to the plight of London's children and good triumphing in the end. However, the main theme in these three novels is industrialization and the urbanization of society, and each novel represents "modern times" in Dickens day, and the way the poor were treated in a continually industrializing society.

Each of these touching and classic Dickens' novels is the story of triumph over evil, but they all also chronicle the life of the poor in England's increasingly mechanized and industrialized society of the 1800s. In "Oliver Twist," Dickens portrays the fate of many orphans who were forced to work for their keep even at young ages. Actually, the "poor laws" forced entire…

Hard Times and Dickens as a Social Critic

As a prominent author of the 19th century, Charles Dickens would be historically contextualized by a time in which the rights of man and the notion of individuality would be rapidly emergent to the collective consciousness. For many authors, this would provide the opportunity to engage in studies of the human conditions by way of a literary tradition that was increasingly and boldly critical of the inequality which had carried over from the crumbling Victorian era. Herein, the focus on the individual development, emotionally and intellectually, of a single subject, would represent a somewhat fanciful departure from traditional narrative approaches. In his 1854, Hard Times, Dickens employs familiar devices such as his indulgence in physical detail, his dark sense of humor and his typically heavy-handed use of archetypal characters in order to help convey a sense of outrage over the inhumane social…

Bounderby, as a manipulative, dishonest, self-centered industrialist, and Gradgrind, as a sincere but misguided follower of the Industrialists' program, rule the world for their own benefit and the benefit of their philosophy. Bounderby is characterized as a villain who sucks the lifeblood from his workers to enrich only himself He is a man who ultimately even turns away from his wife and mother and anyone else of consequence in his life just to make a dollar. Gradgrind, who later has a change of heart and turns away from his insistence on facts, once his beloved daughter confronts him about the unhappiness of her childhood raised on such a program, seems to give himself to the ideology of capitalism because he thinks it is inevitable. Only in Blackpool, a character who suffers at the hands of both the owners and his fellow workers because he is too honest to do otherwise,…

His involvement with the populace manifests itself noticeably in his concern for the immigrants and settlers. In American Notes, he describes two New York Irish laborers with their long-tailed blue coats and bright buttons, and says in Chapter VI, "It would be hard to keep your model republics going without the countrymen and countrywomen of those two laborers. For who else would dig, and delve, and drudge, and do domestic work, and make canals and roads, and execute great lines of Internal Improvement?"

The way that the Americans treat the slaves, Indians and immigrants is totally abhorrent to Dickens, but it is not the only aspect of America that he criticizes in American Notes. He also highly disapproves of Americans' personality, cockiness, huge egos, failure to respect other people's privacy, horrible manners as gulping down their food, chewing and spitting tobacco, disrespect for individual integrity and being overbearing personalities.

Overall,…

Transitions in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations"

Chapter 49 in Charles Dickens' "Great Expectations" is about transitions. Pip begins to meet his "great" expectation; and literally, Miss Havisham's past is burnt away. The passage in question is about Pip having left Miss Havisham in great spirits. She has agreed to give him nine hundred pounds for his business venture with Herbert. He walks around the grounds of Miss Havisham's manor like he did when he was first invited as a play companion to Estella. Inexplicably, he has a premonition that something might be wrong. He returns to see Miss Havisham. Suddenly, he finds Ms. Havisham on fire -- probably, from the lit candles on the dining table. He smothers the flames with his topcoat, saving her. Fear, and possibly the pain of the burns, causes her to faint.

Pip keeps her covered until help arrives. The doctor tends to Miss Havisham.…

horror in the Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is the four ghosts that appear to Ebenezer Scrooge. Apart from these however, there are also subtle elements that provide the novel with its particularly horrific atmosphere. Ebenezer Scrooge for example shows a mean-spirited and cold attitude, which appears to translate itself to his house, which is also cold and dark.

The main character of the story is Scrooge, who displays an attitude of cold contempt for everything except money. He is so miserly that he does not wish to spend money either on heat or light in his house, which accounts for the cold and dark atmosphere. This is reinforced by Scrooge's cruelty to his fellow human beings, in that he will not buy coals for a fire to provide his clerk, ob Cratchit, with heat to work by. This miserly nature is again reinforced by Scrooge's refusal to contribute to…

In an article titled The Superego, Narcissism and Great Expectations Ingham writes "As [Pip] forlornly gazes at his parent's headstone he is suddenly accosted by an escaped convict, Magwitch, who threatens dreadful consequences unless Pip steals a file and food. Magwitch seems to emerge from the parental grave and to embody primitive menace, dire and horrifying punishments -- the 'ghost' of the lost parents, infused with the abandoned child's own rage and hatred, his omnipotent and sadistic phantasies" (755).

The psychoanalytic theories put forth by Freud assert that the superego acts as the voice of reason over the less mature and more impulsive id and ego. Thus in applying these conceptions to the characters of Pip and Magwitch, Ingham is essentially substituting the characters' actual personas with the process of personality development. Thus, unlike earlier critics that based the majority of their arguments on societal conceptions of morality and their…

She does not hesitate to risk her position in order to help David at the time when he is confined by Mr. Murdstone. The Murdstones are representative for high-born individuals through the fact that they continuously express their lack of appreciation in regard to servants. Peggotty does not have any hidden interest as she opens herself completely to David and puts across her faithfulness to the boy whenever the situation arises. Even when she meets Mrs. Betsey, Peggotty does not abandon David and demonstrates that she is equally capable to care for his eccentric aunt. The fact that she continues to stay with David and to other individuals that she is close to when they practically represent a burden for her provides more information regarding Peggotty's character. The woman is not interested in earning any profits as a result of her help, as she is virtually selfless. Her poverty does…

Cathy is, although temporarily lowered to a servant when Lockwood first meets her, was brought up from birth by her father to be a refined young girl, and Hareton is the rightful owner of the estate he inherits, not a true orphan and stable boy like Heathcliff.

The shift in the individual and personal past cannot change society in Bronte -- perhaps because Bronte's tale is a romantic tale, embracing both female and male experience, and this acknowledges the limits of gender, of both partners in a relationship. In contrast, Scrooge's initially rejection of human kindness is solely told in male-directed, economic terms -- by providing a turkey and medical care for Bob Cratchit's family, Scrooge becomes a good man. Scrooge is more powerful, financially, even if he lacks a heart socially, than Catherine or Cathy is, as both are women who are possessed of an estate only through patrilineal…

In other words, he changes, and for Marx, the capitalist cannot change until forced to do so, specifically by the revolution he and Engels call for in the Communist Manifesto. Marx sees the economic development of history as a matter of class struggle, following the dialectic of Hegel as opposing forces fight and through that revolution produce a synthesis, or a new social order. Dickens sees change as possible more simply by showing people the error of their ways and so getting them to change to a different way of behaving. Marx sees the need for a revolution to force any change into existence.

Again, the England described by Dickens was the England that helped produce Karl Marx and that contributed to his social theory. Both Marx and Dickens see the social ills of the time and ascribe these to the greed and single-minded pursuit of money on the part…

Hard Times

In sharp contrast to the bleak and gray industrial setting of Coketown, the circus in Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times is full of life, color, and character. In Hard Times, the circus therefore symbolizes the opposite of everything Coketown and the Industrial Revolution represent. For instance, the circus workers are fanciful and free; the factory workers, on the other hand, are drones who drudge through each day. Similarly, the performers demonstrate a cooperative, communal, and compassionate attitude, whereas the industrialists denote rampant individualism, greed, and self-centeredness. The circus represents a diversion from the mundane, a realm of pure imagination, whereas the factories of Coketown are nothing but mundane and are entirely lacking in imagination. To specific characters in Hard Times, Sleary's circus symbolizes several different and often conflicting ideas. For Tom and Louisa, and eventually for Gradgrind, Sleary's circus is a bastion of hope and a means of…

Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft

Sociology is the study of how humans interact with each another, whether alone or in groups. But since the study of human interactions is a diverse subject, many sociologist, professional and non-professional, have observed and made conclusions based on their observations and thought. Two of these are Ferdinand Tonnies and Charles Dickens, and while Tonnies is regarded as one of the fathers of the science of sociology, Charles Dickens' writings have as much of a sociological theme as anything written by Tonnies. One of Tonnies' theories is what is called "Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft," and is commonly translated into English as "culture and society." This type of bipartisan split in society is also described by Charles Dickens in his "Hard Times," where his story centers on the lives of both wealthy and poor in a fictional Victorian industrialized city. In fact, "Hard Times," at its core, describes a…

Hard Times

In his novel Hard Times, Charles Dickens is not shy in confronting what he sees as the paramount social evils of his day, particularly when those evils come in the form of ostensibly beneficent social movements themselves. In particular, Dickens satirizes Jeremy Bentham's Utilitarianism through the characterization of Thomas Gradgrind and Josiah Bounderby as men of cold reason and hard facts, and uses the fates of the various characters to demonstrate the destructive potential of Utilitarian ethics when applied without a comprehensive, objective standard for determining good and bad. The city of Coketown represents the physical embodiment of the cruel, alien world produced by the enactment of Utilitarian policy, and contrasts with its creators expressed dedication to facts and reason. By considering the characterization of Gradgrind and Bounderby, the setting of Coketown, and the narrator's particular use of language throughout the novel alongside the philosophy of Utilitarianism as…

One cannot build the right sort of house -- the houses are not really adequate, "Blinds, shutter, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out the star. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot arrow." The stare here is the metonymic device -- we assume it is stranger, the outside vs. The inside, but for some reason, it is also the authority involved, and one that is able to ensure adequacy. In a similar vein, the "churches were freest from it," but they offer only an homage' to safety, and use their power to shut people out from the light that "made the eyes ache" and had been inhumanly oppressive. The prison, though, is "so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive star blinked at it and left it to such refuse of reflected light as could find." The stare is…

Stephen lackpool, on the other hand could be considered to be from the other side of the tracks. He was a poor man and worked in ounderby's factory as a weaver. The language that Dickens' uses to describe the world that lackpool is from is quite depressing. He tells us that the Gradgrinds live at Stone Lodge. This name itself conjures up and image of a mini castle surrounded by lush, green grass. He describes Stephen lackpool's environment as a place 'where Nature was as strongly bricked out as killing airs and gases were bricked in' and 'the whole an unnatural family, shouldering and trampling and pressing one another to death'. He even lets us know that Stephen looks much older than his forty years because of the life and environment he is from. Poor Stephen loses his job for standing up for his coworkers and also left Coketown in…

"It was a curious childhood, full of weird, fantastic impressions and contradictory influences, stimulating alike to the imagination and that embryo philosophy of life which begins almost with infancy."

Paine 14) His consummate biography written in 1912, just after his death claims that Clemens spent the majority of his childhood in the company of his siblings, and the family slaves as his parents where often otherwise engaged, his father and inventor and his mother challenged by the running of such a large family with very little support.

Mark Twain did not remember ever having seen or heard his father laugh. The problem of supplying food was a somber one to John Clemens; also, he was working on a perpetualmotion machine at this period, which absorbed his spare time, and, to the inventor at least, was not a mirthful occupation. Jane Clemens was busy, too. Her sense of humor did not…

Crime, Punishment & Justice in Great Expectations

Crime, Punishment and Justice in Great Expectations

In his novel Great Expectations Charles Dickens' characters often seem to be operating outside or just outside the law in gray areas where what is legally correct clash with what is morally the right thing to do. The theme of crime in Dickens' novels is used as a focal point to explore his deep concern for the pervasive array of social problems that permeated England in the nineteenth century (Ford 82-83).

Dickens frames this novel as an individual's struggle to rise above the social and political conditions of that time. Criminality, punishment, and a perverse sense of justice are some of the themes Dickens surfaces to explore this world. At several points throughout the novel convicts come into the story, Pip encounters Magwitch on the marshes in the first chapter (Dickens 2), Magwitch and Compeysen are…

Opening Paragraph of "A Tale of Two Cities" by Charles Dickens

In Charles Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities," the characters and settings are doubled, and even the opening lines of the story sets the stage for an age of paradox. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness," wrote Dickens.

This opening paragraph describes the conflict in France that Dickens will later describe in greater detail. asically, the peasants are being destroyed because of the needs and desires of the wealthy and affluent. Like exterminators killing roaches, the rich aimed to drive out the poor during this time.

The opening paragraph provides a strong start to a brief yet informative first chapter, which describes the era in which the novel takes place: England and France in 1775. This age was marked by contradiction…

Home: David Copperfield and Joseph Andrews

Consider the respective namesakes of Joseph Andrews and David Copperfield. Briefly, how much do we know about these two characters? Are they fully developed characters? Are they atypical in terms of their respective novels? What does that information suggest about the respective methods of characterization of Henry Fielding and Charles Dickens?

The naming of the protagonists of the novels David Copperfield and Joseph Andrews is important, as these two characters are, to use Dickens's phrase, the heroes of their own lives. David's birth is filled with portents, from the caul around his neck, to his weak mother whom is a foreshadowing in waxen doll like attitude and form to her son's eventual wedlock with the silly Dora. The younger David becomes a kind of replacement father to his mother, taking the name and place of his ghostly, elderly father whom barely functions as a…

Oh, To Be England Now That the Industrial evolution Is Here

The emergence and expansion of industry within Victorian England was a primary concern among the writers and other members of the intelligentsia of that colorful era. During the 19th century, people were moving away from the farm and into the factories, which provided writers a new vista to cultivate stories about the plight of Man. Perhaps no one fully understood at the time it was the end of the agrarian age, where farming the land was no longer the only source and means people could survive and flourish in this world. There was a new commerce being generated from the smoke-stacked factories that began to litter the lush, green yet formidable countryside of England. George Eliot's exceptionally poignant novel Felix Holt: The adical, set thirty years prior from its original publication date, examines and highlights the roles of the…

Fiction Messenger

Economic Injustice in the Fictional orks of Dickens and Gaskell

In his text on human commercial practices and economic behaviors, author James Black diverges from many of the dryer and less nuanced textual considerations of socioeconomic dynamics. He does so by couching his discussion in frequent divergences into iconic and modern works of fiction. These add a humanitarian consideration to many of his discussion points, helping to provide more complex rationales for why human beings in business and matters of money tend to behave the way they do. Beyond this, Black provides a compelling template for consideration of broader sociological concerns. This serves as an ideal framework for the present discussion, which considers pressing human issues such as poverty and labor conditions. Hereafter, we consider the works of Charles Dickens and Elizabeth Gaskell, both of whom would comment extensively on the economic affairs of societies in their highly…

6). Beattie, like anyone else, was a product of her times.

She is also, again like anyone else, a product of her own individual circumstances. A further interpretation of the bowl as a symbol of the feminine finds a deeper connection between the circumstances of the fictional Andrea and the real-life Ann Beattie. Though she is not especially forthcoming with personal details, there are some facts with which a correlation can be drawn.

Though (presumably) happily married for many years, Ann Beattie and her husband have no children (Frost, par. 1). Again, she has not shared the reasons for this, nor would it be a reasonable question to pose to her. It is a significant fact to note, however, given the resemblance of the bowl to the female womb. Henningfield suggests an interpretation of the bowl, especially of the husband's turning away from it and Andrea's refusal to let him…

Victorian Prose and Poetry, by Lionel Trilling and Harold Bloom. Specifically, it will discuss ealism and compromise in Victorian Literature. How do Victorian writers search for realistic compromises with the world around them?

VICTOIAN LITEATUE

In Victorian literature, ealism followed the age of omanticism, and ealism quickly evolved into Naturalism, practiced by many authors of the time, including Jack London, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen, and Sinclair Lewis. "There was a time when the intellectual and spiritual life of Europe as a whole was dominated by neo-classicism; it was dominated in the next era by omanticism; and then it was dominated by ealism, which developed into Naturalism" (Baker 58). ealism in literature attempted to portray things as they really were, scientifically and without emotion, placing man in balance with nature.

The task of realism, Howells felt, was to defend "the people" against its adversaries. The realist, he wrote, "feels…

Using "Stage One: Rubric for Group Invesigative Roles" can be helpful here, a grading rubric that stresses the ability of students to present information aloud and on paper to with sources correctly cited, with understanding, etc. During the performance, students should be assessed not simply on acting ability, but as denoted in "Stage Three: Rubric for Peformance," that they can understand and morally evaluate what is going on, such as clearly explaining several ways in which a character 'saw' things differently than other characters. This may require teachers to meet with students one-on-one, before giving a final grade, so as to discuss what students learned from the project.

hat is the revision process once you have the results from your evaluation?

Students can fill out a questionaire, reporting and assessing their contribution to the experience to allow the teacher to assimilate new information into the lesson plan next year.

orks…

Alice in Wonderland as Victorian Literature -- Being a child in Victorian England was difficult. They had to behave like the adults did, follow all rules, they had to be seen but not heard. Children, however, are naturally curious; unable to sit for long periods of time, and as part of normal cognitive development, consistently asking questions about the world. In fact, childhood is the period when a child acquires the knowledge needed to perform as an adult. It is the experiences of childhood that the personality of the adult is constructed. Alice's adventures, then, are really more of a set of curiosities that Carroll believed children share. Why is this, who is this, how does this work? and, her journey through Wonderland, somewhat symbolic of a type of "Garden of Eden," combines stark realities that would be necessary for her transition to adulthood.

For Victorians, control was part of…

espect must be shown for cultural differences and different belief systems and children should be encouraged to share their culture and values with others.

This belief can be operationalized by "show and tell "exercises in which children share something about their family and culture and by "International Night" in which children bring dishes of their country

Children are lazy; they need to be pushed to learn.

Learning takes place in a safe, supportive, and stimulating environment. This belief is operationalized by maintaining a classroom environment in which students show respect and tolerance for others, evaluating curriculum in term of how well it helps students learn, and the use of incentives, as opposed to discipline, to assure good behavior and academic excellence.

The teachers lectures; the student learns

Learning is the construction of knowledge and the making of meaningful connections through active participation. In real life, people learn more by doing…

It is portrayal of extreme goodness with extreme evil that makes the story believable and causes us to lose ourselves in the process.

It was no wonder that the ussian authors such as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov are renowned for their craft. Each of them were supreme psychologists with the portrayal of the human spirit brilliant in its comprehension and complexity. Take Dostoyevsky's 'Crime and Punishment' for instance. Here, evil slurred side-by-side with goodness. The hero murdered. Yet insertion of dichotomy into the narrative reveals his honesty, inclination towards religion, and desire to be good.

Pierre Bezukhov, a bumbling figure, was no different in Tolstoy's War and Peace. A drunkard and a fool, he was likeable, loyal, and ultimate survivor and hero of the tale.

In no other story could the benefit of dichotomy be more clearly evidenced than in Anne Karenina. The narrative is rife with contrast. The heroine…

The Aeneid

Taking a character from The Iliad and setting him on his own journey, the Roman Virgil's epic The Aeneid necessarily contains certain parallels with the earlier Greek text. The overall story of this lengthy poem in and of itself reflects many of the same basic understandings of mankind's place in the universe, its relationship to the gods, and the relationships that exist within society and between men that are already described above, demonstrating that no real fundamental change has occurred in this schema. Aeneas, the titular hero of the tale who flees his native Troy after it is sacked by the Greeks, is as important as the individual heroes of the war itself, but more than a tale of individual heroism The Aeneid is the story of the founding of a people and the long trajectory of history and humanity. It is a tale for and in many…

In the cinema, women were often sexual, powerful vamps and flappers, portrayed by actresses like Louise Brooks and Clara Bow. Flappers cut off their long hair and shed their long skirts for a more athletic and empowered appearance. However, although the flapper was culturally significant in terms of her image and power, her time in the limelight was relatively brief. Born of the prosperity of the Roaring 20s, during the Great Depression, women faced more sober circumstances. Still, many women continued to work, often because they were now the primary breadwinners for impoverished households. But working away from the home and female independence was less idealized. Films such as The Gold Diggers of 1933 showed women looking to marriage as a way of relieving their economic despair.

Katherine Hepburn: The Next New oman

hile some of the stars to emerge during the 1930s were decorous and feminine, others, such as…

Legacy of Hans Christian ndersen

If you want children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read more fairy tales. lbert Einstein

Biographical Background- Hans Christian ndersen was a Danish author who is best known for his children's stories, many of which have become archetypes of popular culture and, in the 20th century, made into iconoclastic films, musicals, and ballets. While he was concerned about his legacy, he need not have worried for his poetry and stories have been translated into more than 150 languages and even spurred a whole generation of children's names (Bredsdorff 1975).

ndersen did not start off as an author, instead he moved at age 14 to Copenhagen to become an actor. While he had a great voice, and was accepted into the Royal Danish Theater, once his voice changed he had to find other work. fellow student…

Capital Punishment: A Capital Offense in Today's Easily Misguided orld

The debate surrounding the usage of capital punishment in the modern era has raged for generations. hile there have always been arguments for the positive aspects of capital punishment, today's world is less optimistic about the death penalty -- and with good reason. The death penalty affects more than just the convicted, it affects all of society. In order to show why capital punishment should be avoided, it is helpful to draw lessons from history, literature, and psychology.

The historical case for capital punishment has long been made. Capital punishment has existed in every major society in one form or another throughout the centuries. As Michael Kronenwetter states, in every society "all punishment is based on the same simple proposition: There must be a penalty for wrongdoing" (1). Kronenwetter is correct in asserting as much: all major societies have had…

(Eliot, 1971).

The Subjective over the Objective

Modernism was a reaction against Realism and its focus on objective depiction of life as it was actually lived. Modernist writers derived little artistic pleasure from describing the concrete details of the material world and the various human doings in it. They derived only a little more pleasure from describing the thoughts of those humans inhabiting the material world. Their greatest pleasure, however, was in expressing the angst, confusion, and frustration of the individual who has to live in that world. (Merriam-Webster, p. 1236).

Modernist writers used novel means for expressing these newly intense emotions. They did not always express the individual's confusion and frustration by relating the inner discourse of the individual. Instead, they manipulated the structure, style, and content of their works to cultivate a certain effect on the reader. (aym, Vol. D, p. 17). They wanted to convey the experience…

Blackest Bird opens on July 26, 1841 at midnight. A man, somewhat reluctantly and with a twinge of guilt, dumps Mary's dead body into the Hudson River. The killer audibly cries out, teeming with guilt as he wonders what have I done? "Oh Mary!" (Rose 11). Therefore, the killer knows Mary, and was likely either in love with her or a close companion. He could even be her relative.

Detective Jacob Hays is sixty-nine years old and in no mood to retire. He has long served the city of New York, as high constable. Known as Old Hays, he is obsessed with crime, and especially solving them. The murder of the as-of-yet unknown Mary captures his attention. hen he realizes that the body belongs not just to any Mary, but to Mary Rogers, Old Hays knows he's got a huge story on his hands. Mary Rogers is the locally famous…

Consequences of the Industrial Revolution on English Society

The ninety years between 1760 and 1850, commonly regarded as the "First Generation" of the Industrial Revolution in Britain, were to bring about sweeping changes: technological, economic, philosophical and social. Previously, technology was low. Manufactured goods were produced by hand, often in the home or in small workshops, by skilled artisans who generally specialized in making one type of goods or one component of an item. The economy was dominated by agriculture, and the majority of the population was rural. ealthy families who owned the land rented it to tenant farmers; these tenants, while mostly illiterate, had the opportunity to grow their own food and live in somewhat appealing and healthful surroundings. They were almost a cashless society, paying their rents and buying goods largely through their produce and exchange of labor. Their diversions often centered around fairs and saints' days, and…

Sir Walter Scott was a writer a part of the romantic era, roughly 1797 -- 1837. Scott was born slightly before the beginning of this era, in 1771, and died nearly at the same time the period changed in 1832. Scott is known as a novelist, playwright, and poet of Scottish descent. The beginning of the omantic period is typically attributed to the publication of Wordworth's and Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, and closed with the rise into power of Queen Victoria. This is a period in literature that produced outstanding lyrical poetry, a few dramas, and several novelists that were popular, including Scott. Scott was known for the ability to blend European history into entertaining narratives. Scott happened to have mass appeal during this period, able to reach readers of various classes and places within the Victorian era. At the time of the omantic Era, authors such as Jane Austen were…

In fact, he stresses that these stories should be read without any commentary about the possible unconscious content. "Fairy tales can and do serve children well, can even make an unbearable life seem worth living, as long as the child doesn't know what they mean to him psychologically" (Bettelheim 57). This destroys the story's enchantment.

More recently, different authors have returned to the earlier usage of fairy tales, or conveying a message about society perspectives. Catherine Storr, for example, emphasizes a feminist viewpoint. In "Little Polly iding Hood." Polly does not become a victim to the cunning of the male wolf. In fact, she outsmarts him and refutes the stereotype of men being smarter than women. Polly does not even live in a forest but in a city. She deceives the wolf by taking the bus or getting a ride to her grandmother's house. Finally, the story ends with the…

Formalism

The subject of films is a matter of dreams for many persons though the attraction has come down after the new medium of video has come in. Yet, for some it is still the medium to dream in.

To get into the concept of formalist film theory, one has to talk about the film in terms of the formal or technical elements within the film. These are in terms of its lighting, sound and set design, scoring, color usage, composition of shots and editing. This is the most prevalent method of studying films today. Thus when the theory is considered, it will take into account the synthesis or lack of synthesis of the different elements of film production and the total effects that are produced by the individual elements of the film. One of the common examples of this is to consider the effects of editing and when a…

And while it may seem silly upon first reading or seeing the play, it is clear that a Midsummer Night's Dream also has quite serious ideas. Scholars have noted that the play includes a cultural critique of the Elizabethan era in which it is set (Lamb 93-124). Other critics have noted that the play may contain quite subversive ideas regarding the fluid nature of sexual identity (Green 369-370). Whatever way you choose to interpret a Midsummer Night's Dream, the play's goofy characters, outrageous situations, and rich language have ensured the play's status as a classic work of English literature.

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Theories Concerning the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays. New York: Routledge, 2005.

Green, Douglas E. "Preposterous Pleasures: Queer…

And yet, the clockwork puppet, certainly but a shadow of a living woman, can only try to sing, try to move out from the shadows, out from the stereotype crushing her. The horrible marionette, in contrast, rather than singing, smoked its cigarette and tried to pretend it was alive. Finally, the utter hopelessness of the dark side of Victorian society comes out with the phrase, "The dead are dancing with the dead, the dust is whirling with the dust," evoking the funeral speak of "ashes to ashes, dust to dust," and the dead -- the underside of society, those with whom the proper Victorian had little use, pass from love to lust, from light to dark, tire of the game as they do the synthetic waltz, their shadows morphing into nothing as they continue to wheel and whirl, finally weary of it all.

The literary images of this poem, coupled…

All of his efforts were recognized, however insufficiently, through the awarding of the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Prize in 1983. He had been once more nominated for the prize in 1978, but he would only receive it at his second nomination, five years later (Wands, 2010). Several of his works were adapted to television and the big screen.

4. Dahl's Matilda

Matilda is one of the most representative works for oald Dahl for several reasons. First, it is part of the series addressed to children. Then, it has been so well received by the public that it was put into film in 1996. Finally, it is inspired from the author's own life and experiences at the boarding school. Matilda is as such the story of a young girl, Matilda Wormwood, with high intelligence, who is neglected by her parents that force her to watch television, and abused by her teachers,…

uperstition relates to the sense of exploration and the hunger for knowledge in the contemporary human heart. The themes of light and darkness in the modern context has developed to signify knowledge and ignorance - the former being banished by knowledge like shadow by light. In this way, the main themes of the story take on a symbolic significance for the contemporary world, and remains relative to the paradigm of the universal reader.

The Daughters of the Late Colonel by Katherine Mansfield.

Like Conrad, Mansfield includes a strong sense of the supernatural in her story. At one point, the daughters visit their departed father's room. They become very frightened when they sense their father's presence, with Josephine even feeling that the father is in a specific drawer, watching them. This provides little ground for connection, as it is likely to make the reader laugh rather than feel jitters.

In Mansfield's…

Lesson plans should closely follow the IEP goals.

Disabilities should be an essential part of any curriculum discussion because it can impact a student's ability to learn certain material. Dylexic students for instance will have a fundamentally harder time with reading comprehension and writing than other students. Therefore, their IEP will factor in their learning disability in order to allow them to reach their own goals in terms of education level and standards. Without such a criteria certain students will become frustrated and oftentimes underperform.

eading Levels

eading level refers to ability of students to read and comprehend instructional material. It is critical to understand that students' reading levels might be higher or lower than their grade level. A fifth grader might enjoy reading books with a 6.0 to 6.9 reading level, which would be appropriate for the average sixth grader.

By using assessments that indicate a student's reading level,…

They were followed in 1936 by the Harlem River Houses, a more modest experiment in housing projects. And by 1964, nine giant public housing projects had been constructed in the neighborhood, housing over 41,000 people [see also Tritter; Pinckney and oock].

The roots of Harlem's various pre 1960's-era movements for African-American equality began growing years before the Harlem Renaissance itself, and were still alive long after the Harlem Renaissance ended. For example:

The NAACP became active in Harlem in 1910 and Marcus Garvey's Universal

Negro Improvement Organization in 1916. The NAACP chapter there soon grew to be the largest in the country. Activist a. Philip Randolph lived in Harlem and published the radical magazine the Messenger starting in 1917.

It was from Harlem that he organized the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car

Porters. .E.B. DuBois lived and published in Harlem in the 1920s, as did

James eldon Johnson and Marcus Garvey.…

Andrea Chenier

Though Umberto Giordano's work has often been overshadowed by that of his rather more famous contemporary Giacomo Puccini, Giordano's Andrea Chenier offers the ideal site for one to engage in a critical examination of nineteenth century opera and the various thematic and stylistic strains popularized at the time, as well as the complications which arise from modern interpretation and performance. In particular, examining the critical history of verismo alongside the historical context of Andrea Chenier serves to demonstrate how fully a modern performance of the opera seemingly subsumes and dissolves any revolutionary character that might have been present in the original text by reproducing the story of doomed love during the French evolution in a gaudy, ahistorical performance.

Before conducting an analysis of a modern performance of Andrea Chenier, there are a few key topics one must investigate further in order to place the subsequent analysis in its…

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Part 2- When I think of child labor, I think of Charles Dickens -- Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and the other novels that showed how in the Victorian Era, only wealthy children had childhoods. And then, in America, I think of the factory mills of the north producing cotton, dangerous places to work, and mines that used children because it was easier for them to be in tunnels. However, in the modern world, I think of not only younger children working in factories, mostly in Asia to make American and Western European sporting outfits, tennis shoes, etc., but of the market for child slaves and prostitutes from Eastern Europe and Asia. As for causes of child labor, it seems to me that it is a function of capitalism and the market -- capitalism requires some sort of cheap labor for certain items that people want. Greed being what it…

Thus, the idea of a strong, female leader is created through conceptual blending, and the ultimately oxymoronic pairing of unlike words. Something new is created, through the use of cultural, political, religious, and historical references, and of the pairing of these two specific nouns together.

3. Explain what Fauconnier and Turner mean when they assert on page 15, in effect, that, "Metaphor is not just something derived from 'core meaning'?" Are they right? (Please refer to The Way We Think: Conceptual Blending and the Mind's Hidden Complexities by Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Tuner)

Because unlike the literary device or trope of simile, the use of metaphor deploys the verb 'is,' as in, 'hope is a thing with feathers,' in the famous poem of Emily Dickinson of this title, one is tempted to assume that metaphor accesses some core meaning of a word or concept. But as this example shows, the…

ichard Hughes: A High Wind in Jamaica

This story, the first novel by ichard Hughes, takes place in the 19th Century, and mixes the diverse subjects of humor, irony, satire, pirates, sexuality and children into a very interesting tale, with many sidebar stories tucked into the main theme.

The first part of the story has an eerily familiar ring and meteorological link with the December, 2004 tsunami-related disaster in Asia. In A High Wind, first there is an earthquake, then hurricane-force winds, followed by torrential rains (although no tidal wave) devastate the island and the British children who lived there are sent to England. However, on the way they are attacked by pirates and unwittingly kidnapped by those pirates. From there, the novel has a definite Lord of the Flies tone to it: the English children actually take over control of much of the activities on board, which is as…

As Conroy entwines the past and present, the reader is carried away by this very engaging story.

Although Conroy paints Tom as very human, complete with flaws and strengths, his character is not as memorable as, say perhaps, a Charles Dickens character. However, Conroy's psychological profile of this Southern family is every bit as captivating as that of illiam Faulkner or Tennessee illiams. The story depicts how easy a family can hide behind a veil of secrets, never daring to allow the light of truth, lest the emotions of guilt and shame overpower one's grip on reality. Yet that is exactly what happens when certain events stay buried, as evident in Savannah's character, and to a lesser degree in Tom's.

Only time will tell whether future generations will regard this book as a literary classic, however, Pat Conroy's novel possesses all the markings of true masterwork fiction. The book is…

And perhaps worst of all are books like Chicken Soup for the Soul, which are usually given as graduation gifts or gifts given to a person undergoing a difficult emotional crisis, again more like one would give a greeting card than a book full of information.

But Twitchell's other point, that the publishing industry must maintain a clear sense of high culture and guide rather than respond to America's tastes, is more controversial than his suggestion that the book world should re-focus its attention on reading rather than simply selling printed matter. Although some of the best sellers Twitchell despises, like works by Danielle Steel or Steven King, may be without merit one might ask -- has he ever read the cultural critiques found within the pages of a Calvin and Hobbes comic? Why speak of the quality of Salmon Rushdie in the same breath as Steel and King --…

Male and Female Relationships in 'Calabash Parkway'

The objective of this research study is to examine the male and female relationships in the work entitled 'Calabash Parkway' written by renda Chester DoHarris published by Tantaria Press in 2005. Towards this end, this study will conduct a review of literature and specifically reviews of other writers on the work of DoHarris.

Calabash Parkway -- A Novel

The work of DoHarris (2005) entitled Calabash Parkway is written for "her undocumented sisters and brothers, many of whom, have taken great risks and made great sacrifices to enter and live in the U.S., and who prefer to languish in an 'undocumented twilight zone and die rather than remain in an economic and political ferment at home." (ook Shelf, 2008, p.2) The novel's setting is New York City and Guyana in the 1950s. It is reported that DoHarris "pours her heart in the story, assuming…

Dignity of orkers

Dignity of ork and the Rights of orkers

There is a set of photographs taken by Sebastiao Salgado that explains the viewer both who Salgado is and why he covers the worker's plight throughout the world. The images are set in a gold mine in Brazil called Serra Pelada which is a vast pit where people toil daily to dig gold from the mud. The people dig the mud from the pit using the meanest of tools (pick, shovels) which they then put into wicker baskets. The baskets, weighing between "30 and 60 kilograms" (Stallabrass), or 65 to 130 pounds, are then carried up wooden ladders. The ladders are approximately 50 feet tall (and can be more), and the workers make as many as 60 trips per day with their baskets (Stallabrass). For each trip, the worker is paid the equivalent of 20 United States cents on…

Gothic and Edgar Allan Poe's Tamerlane And Other Poems

The writing of Edgar Allan Poe will always be connected to the gothic style of literature because Poe used death, mourning and sadness as major themes, and his first published work actually shows some of the style that would make him famous later in life. Published in 1827 when Poe was just a young man of 18-years old, the book Tamerlane and Other Poems contained several poems written when Poe was just a teenager. Because the poetry was the work of such a young man, Poe made sure to tell readers in the Preface that "they were of course not intended for publication; why they are now published concerns no one but himself. Of the smaller pieces very little need be said: they perhaps savour too much of egotism; but they were written by one too young to have any knowledge…

true since we were children and we were told by adults that "words will never hurt us." A good many of us would most likely have preferred the sticks and stones because physical injuries often heal far more quickly and far more effectively than psychological ones.

And yet, even as we must all acknowledge the basic principle that words can do real harm, many people continue to insist that sexist language is a trivial concern. This paper looks at the reasons why it is important to be careful about the language that we use. It is all too easy for opponents of care in language to toss off concerns about bias as "political correctness." But it is important that the rest of us insist that "political correctness" can be viewed another way: As basic courtesy and civility.

Because language is one of the most powerful forces that there is, anyone…

Spontaneous human combustion is the claim that human beings from time to time burst into flame and are consumed, usually without much damage to their surroundings, as if the heat from the flame came from inside their bodies. These claims have been made for a long time, fueled by newspaper accounts of such deaths and vague statements about there being no other apparent means for these fires to have started. More recent investigations have suggested that most of these accounts ar a matter of faulty observation or faulty reporting in the press.

Mark Benecke makes this clear when he writes,

Paranormal proponents and popular articles are quick to attribute certain dramatic fire-death characteristics to an unknown or bizarre power source, but in all such deaths documented in forensic literature, there has been no need to resort to bizarre interpretations to account for the observed facts (Benecke 47).

The phenomenon was…

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The orks Cited two sources in MLA format.

Reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

For all voracious readers who have an insatiable thirst for serious, entertaining, enthralling and mature reading, popular names like illiam Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and Mark Twain are not only familiar but also all-time favorites of many. After The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain introduced another thought-provoking yet highly gripping sequel of the masterpiece titled The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, that is avidly taught in schools, remains on all library shelves and is a great and a fast-paced read to date. This analytical as well as an argumentative paper revolves around the following thesis statement:

The masterwork The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a humorous story addressing highly debatable issues and soon became an extremely controversial magnum opus. It is a scholarly piece of writing that…

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott's defining work, which brought her much fame in her time, is a biographical account of her family. In the book, her father Amos ronson is Mr. March and her mother Abigail May is Marmee, while her older sister Anna is Meg and younger sisters Lizzie and May are eth and Amy, respectively. And Louisa May is the lead character, Josephine or Jo March, the second daughter. The novel, published in 1868-1869, made Alcott a major author of her era.

The March family is poor all throughout, and the women are always doing routine housework, which bores and frustrates them. Mr. March serves as a Union chaplain in the Civil War, which then rages, and he writes his family to inspire them to be more tolerant of their poverty and hardships. The girls wake up on Christmas morning to find copies of books under their pillows,…

David - a Literary Perspective smehra

Literary Perspective on David from the Bible

Throughout literary history, authors have created characters that are both enigmatic and treacherous; who by their very nature epitomize all that is evil, as well as all that is good in human nature. Character development is an important part of any story, and for there to be a realization on the reader's behalf, there must be a justifiable, and equally strong character development, or moral change for such a message to get across in the story, or literary work.

Many authors will have a turn of events, as a means to justify this change in personality of a particular character, as seen in Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. While others may let their character follow a course of action and in turn, suffer the consequences as a lesson to the reader, as in the case of Antigone.…