Ghost Story

Ghost Story, starring Fred Astaire, Melvyn Douglas, John Houseman, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Alice Krige, Patricia Neal, and Craig Wasson pits four elderly men and a pair of twin sons, against a female ghost who is looking for revenge. The movie is based on the book, "Ghost Story," written by Peter Straub. While many horror novels have been turned into well-made and successful movies, (think Steven King), this movie is not one of them. Ghost Story was painfully dull and predictable, failing to instill any sense of suspense or horror.

The premise is that four successful older men living in a small New England town, Melbourne, meet regularly to tell ghost stories while enjoying snifters of brandy and being elegantly attired in tuxedos. They call themselves "The Chowder Society," (not because the screenwriter is a chowder head I would guess). They try to top each other with their horror stories, but…… [Read More]

Ghost Stories Oh There Is

One of the primary functions of ghosts in James' and harton's short stories is as human conscience: to bring the unconscious into conscious awareness and to evoke guilt, shame, or fear. For the governess in "The Turn of the Screw," the ghosts symbolize sexual awakening and social deviance. From the time she arrives at Bly, the governess learns of Miles' misbehavior at school, mischievous behavior that Mrs. Grose attributes to normal adolescence. However, the narrator views the ghosts with increasing suspicion, believing them to herald the social and sexual corruption of Miles' youth. Similarly, Miss Jessel is depicted as having been promiscuous and the governess views her apparition partly as a symbol of unconscious sexual desires. Spencer Brydon's ghost serves a more direct psychological purpose in James' "The Jolly Corner," as the protagonist's own conscience symbolizing the life he never lived and the choices he never took. In both cases,…… [Read More]

Ghosts Whether or Not Ghosts Actually Exist

Ghosts

Whether or not ghosts actually exist is a question that has been debated in almost every culture and region around the world since times immemorial. Those who believe in ghosts point to countless instances of unexplained phenomena in which strange sightings and paranormal happenings have taken place. The skeptics on the other hand dismiss such suggestions about "ghosts" as figments of human imagination that have no scientific basis or proof. This essay explores the question: whether ghosts really exist?

The popular Western concept of ghosts is that souls that could not find rest after death, or have some unfinished business in the material world such as seeking revenge, linger on Earth and sometimes appear as apparitions. A broader concept of "ghosts" includes any paranormal or unexplained happenings like the spontaneous movements of an object, strange noises heard in "haunted" places, or even the feeling of a "presence" in one's…… [Read More]

Ghosts in Two Novels Immigration Can Be

Ghosts in Two Novels

Immigration can be a painful and to a certain extent puzzling experience for those who leave behind a culture, which was starkly different from the one, they encountered upon immigration. We have heard and read numerous tales of immigration and related problems and thus there have been numerous books on the subject and some of them have left an indelible impression on reader's mind. Two such books, which we shall discuss in this paper are "The woman warrior" and "How Garcia Girls lost their accents" written by Maxine Kingston and Julia Alvarez respectively. In the first novel, which is part fiction and part autobiography, author has described her experience as an immigrant in the United States with reference to her native culture and its restrictions. In the second novel, we come across immigration problems of a Latin American family. While ethnicity, racism and cultural differences are…… [Read More]

Ghost Map Written by Steven Berlin Johnson

Ghost Map, written by Steven Berlin Johnson, is a book that is based on the most terrifying epidemic which broke out in London. This book describes how the city and science was changed after this epidemic. This book is indeed a must read because the writer of this book describes one of the most deadly outbreaks of cholera on Victorian London, in relation to how it changed the cities, our scientific approach towards the disease in the modern world and much more. The idea of gemeinschaft was incorporated in this piece of writing, describing how an epidemic affects a city of traditions, values, language and common (Cities, 2001).

There are two main people that have been talked about in this book and play the central protagonists. The first one is Dr. John Snow and the second one is everend Henry Whitehead. The map of the cholera cases is created by…… [Read More]

Ghost Soldiers - The Epic Account of

Ghost Soldiers - The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission is a saga of extreme valor of American soldiers and Prisoners of War (POW). The dramatic story of the capture of American and British POW, and their rescue attempt by selected U.S. Army 6th Ranger Batallion took place in Cabanatuan, a province in the Philippine Islands.

Ghost Soldiers is a book that depicts the extraordinary skills and virtue of the soldiers of war. Most of all, it is a chronicle of heroism, sacrifices, and triumph dared by the horror WWII had created. Perhaps, we can say that the story presented by Hampton Sides in Ghost Soldiers is a contribution to the journals of WWII. The book is a breathtaking and detailed account of the horrifying experiences of the POW, the rescuing soldiers, and the rest of the soldiers involved in the rescue mission such as the brave…… [Read More]

Ghost Rider Is Neil Peart's

He uses ample slang and simple sentence construction that is nevertheless sophisticated enough to warrant attention by publishers that aim to reach a broad audience. Readers of Ghost Rider could be motorcycle enthusiasts, Rush fans, or travelogue lovers and "The Loneliest Road in America" would satisfy all three groups of readers. His descriptions are not overloaded by flowery language. Nevertheless, they are vivid and active: "I had almost reached the clouds when the trail petered out at a tumble of boulders marking the base of the actual peak, a rough pyramid of bare, wet rocks," (107). In his attempt to paint pictures of the natural surroundings, Peart also steers away from similes and metaphors that could seem clumsy. For example, he writes, "I looked back at that view from below, the wrinkled, treeless bluff falling into shadow in the translucent twilight, lights beginning to appear from ranches up along that…… [Read More]

Ghost Dance Religion and the

And farther west on the Great Plains were the Teton Sioux, among them the Oglalas, whose chief was Red Cloud, and among the Hunkpapas, was Sitting ull, who together with Crazy Horse of the Oglalas, would make history in 1876 at Little ig Horn (rown 10).

After years of broken promises, conflicts and massacres, came the Treaty of Fort Laramie, said to be the most important document in the history of Indian-white relations on the Great Plains (Marrin 94). The treaty basically set aside a Great Sioux Reservation on all of present-day South Dakota west of the Missouri River up to and including the lack Hills, and barred all whites except government officials from the reservation and from a vast "unceded" territory lying between the lack Hills and ighorn Mountains (Marrin 94). Under the treaty, these lands belonged to the Lakota "forever" unless three-quarters of the tribes' men agreed to…… [Read More]

Ghosts in Both Beloved by

Cho traces the experiences and troubles of the yanggongju across the history of Korea. She does this to document the stories of women who were forced into slavery as comfort women during the war and who by economic necessity ended up turning to the Americans. She calls this emotional suicide the "fabric of erasure" and goes through this process to exorcise the ghost from the Korean national consciousness and the consciousness of women (ibid 1). There is a lot of psychological trauma suffered by the comfort women and Cho adapts to explore these issues across generations of the Korean consciousness. This concept was adapted from studies of the holocaust and fights the emotional erasure. This concept was established by Maria Torok and Nicholas Abraham, scholars of the Holocaust. Cho incorporated these in her project. She said that even "Korean wives who led lives of isolation and were the subject of…… [Read More]

Ghosts in Two Literary Works The Spanish

ghosts in two literary works. The Spanish Tragedy and Hamlet each have a ghost which guides and drives the action of the story. The writer works to compare and contrast the ghosts in each story and tell how they relate to the story. There were two sources used to complete this paper.

Throughout history writers have used unusual methods to illustrate points if their work that they want the reader to understand. In two classic works of literature a ghost was used to provide many of the needed details to the story that would have been unknown otherwise. In The Spanish Tragedy and in Hamlet there were ghosts to provide the foundation for many of the stories actions. Without the ghosts much of the things that occurred would not make any sense to the reader. While they each uses a ghost for the purpose of information provision the ghosts and…… [Read More]

Ghosts of the Past the

Although the events and characters' reactions to them have their differences in the interest of plot variety, similarities between the cases far outweigh the differences.

Not only are the events that Nel and Crowe experience and their reactions to them similar, but also both characters have striking revelations at the end of their stories that suggest the importance of the events. In Nel's case, the remembering "the death of chicken little" allows her to "[reconfigure] a number of long-held memories" (Matus, 69). One of those memories, and probably the most poignant is that of Sula. After coming back to the Bottom, Nel is less than friendly with her former confidant. In fact, she joins the rest of the town in labeling Sula and her wild ways as evil, a predicament that helps unite the town. Although Nel and manage a brief reconciliation before Sula's death, the force of the reconciliation…… [Read More]

Ghosts and Demons

supernatural elements of film and story can be both different and similar. Movies and novels that portray elements of horror and paranormal like ghosts and demons do so in a way that evokes suspense, fear, and a sense of surreal. The movie, The Sixth Sense, directed by M. Night Shyamalan and the novel, The Demonologist written by Andrew Pyper shows ghosts and the supernatural as a means of communication from the afterlife or "other side" and the waking life. Although The Sixth Sense focuses on ghosts and The Demonologist focuses on demons, the way in which the writer/director forms the story share similar concepts.

Pyper creates a protagonist in David who is a skeptic of the existence of the supernatural. As explained on page 7: "A demon expert who believes evil to be a manmade invention." (Pyper 7) His skepticism is born of that of never having truly witnessed an…… [Read More]

Ghost of Hamlet's Father Appears in the

ghost of Hamlet's father appears in the very first scene of the play. The guardsmen, who were demonstrably scared, set the tone for the entire story. The ghost's intentions are eventually known when he tells Hamlet the identity of his murderer. The dark and spooky language the ghost uses in the play sums up the negative tone of the exchange and foreshadows the tragic endings for almost all of the main characters. The language used by the ghost negatively provokes the young prince to acts of revenge and murder:

I find thee apt;

And duller shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:

'Tis given out that, sleeping in my orchard,

A serpent stung me; so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forged process of my death

Rankly abused: but know, thou…… [Read More]

Ghost Towns

colorful period in America's remarkable early history is the gold rush era. In the late 1800's the discovery of gold triggered a flood of immigrants into the country, all intent on making their fortune. These miners shaped the early history of America, and created a great deal of the legend that surrounds the era of the "ild est." hile some of the legends of lawlessness and debauchery are clearly exaggerated, life in the mining towns of the gold rush era was clearly rough and ready.

This paper will examine life in the mining camps of the gold rush era. This will include a look at the people who made up the camps, the general atmosphere, as well as prostitution, gambling, general lawlessness, and the role of religion within the mining camps. The demise of the mining camps will be examined in the context of the development of the railroad and…… [Read More]

Director's Presentation of the Ghost

Analysis of Michael Almereyda's interpretation of the Ghost in Hamlet 2000:

The Micheal Almereyda version of Hamlet, released in the year 2000, has a contemporary setting. The story takes place in New York City with a modern and corporate twist. Hamlet in this film, is depicted as a lonely, twenty-something aspiring artist, who father was the head of the "Denmark Corporation," had passed away some time ago.

The ghost first visits Hamlet in this version, in his apartment, where he appears on the television screen. The film being set in the modern technological era, with cell phones and credit cards, this seemed appropriate. The ghost in the film appears as a specter. As in life, the Ghost is high up in the corporate ladder at the Denmark Corporation, he is dressed to fit. He commands his son in the same manner in his death as in his life. The level…… [Read More]

Old Nurse's Story by Elizabeth Gaskell

Old Nurse's Story

Elizabeth Gaskell's "The Old Nurse's Story" uses gothic imagery and Victorian themes to elucidate the role and status of women. Online critics claim the story is filled with themes of "male domination, females' sense of powerlessness due to this dominance, and the ambiguous results of women's struggle against males in the Victorian era," ("The Damning Effects of a Patriarchal Society in "The Old Nurse's Story" and "The Yellow allpaper"). Indeed, these three core elements are absolutely evident in this haunting tale about rediscovering personal identity via encounters with the past. The motif of haunting allows the past to return to the present in eerie ways. Relying on ghosts allows the author to present the suggestion that the past haunts the lives of all individuals, and that women have trouble extricating themselves from negative situations because of the constraints of dead social institutions and norms.

However, Hughes and…… [Read More]

Hamlet - Ghost Besides the

The centrality of the ghost to the play's metaphysics might be inferred from the fact that illiam Shakespeare acted as the ghost and the player king (Bloom), a strange chimera and bellerophon within the anatomy of the play. To cite Eliot again, Hamlet "is the 'Mona Lisa' of literature" (cf. Hoy 182). It is an exciting challenge to participate in this critical tradition in hopes of concluding it. However, the volumes of superb criticism on Hamlet and King Hamlet's ghost are vast, and this is a mere gloss of its character. If we obsess over it too much, we, like Hamlet, may become lost in its problems.

orks Cited and Consulted

Bloom, Harold. Hamlet: Poem Unlimited. Riverhead Books: New York, 2003.

Dodsworth, Martin. Hamlet Closely Observed. The Athlone Press: London, 1985.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Hamlet in Purgatory. Princeton University Press: Princeton, 2001.

How, Cyrus, ed. illiam Shakespeare Hamlet, Second Edition. ..…… [Read More]

Cheyenne Indians and the Ghost Dance

Cheyenne Indians and the Ghost Dance

The Cheyenne people are Native Americans of the Algonquian language family. They are of the Great Plains culture area. The name Cheyenne means 'people of an alien speech,' and was given to them by the Sioux.

The Cheyenne call themselves Tsetschestahase or Tsistsistas, which means 'beautiful people' or 'our people.'

Originally farmers, hunters, and gatherers in the land that is now central Minnesota, however, during the late 17th century, the Cheyenne were driven out of the area by the Sioux and Ojibwa tribes.

Gradually they migrated westward and settled in the area that is now North Dakota, but were forced to move south when the Ojibwa destroyed their settlement in 1770.

When the Cheyenne reached the lack Hills of South Dakota, they changed from farming and hunting and living in permanent villages to a nomadic life following the uffalo herds.

When the horse was…… [Read More]

Anil's Ghost by Michael Ondaatje

nil's ghost," can be read as a war story or it can also be seen as a tale of young woman coming back to her native land to find that she can no longer relate to the land or its culture. However from both perspectives, the book lacks depth and purpose, which is unfortunate since the author was not writing about some far off land but about his own country and their people. The problem with the book lies in its ambiguously developed characters and a general lack of central theme.

The novel is about Tamil-government war in Sri Lanka that also brings in discussion on general political conditions in this part of the world. Sri Lanka is terrorized by decades of civil war, which has left an indelible mark on the country in terms of economic and political decline. The political infrastructure and various governmental institutions have collapsed under…… [Read More]

King Leopold's Ghost Is an

Other imperialist powers continued to exploit immensely naturally rich country and still made use of Force Publique, the army of mercenaries that Leopold had employed for his sinister objectives. They also used the tactics employed by Leopold to extract rubber in their own colonies. ith the outbreak of First orld ar, the world largely forgot about Congo and its horrifying past. Instead of showing outrage against Belgium for allowing such brutalities in one of their colonies, the Allies actually started the war against Germany on the pretext that it was trying to protect Belgium. It had taken just a few years for them to forget that "only a decade or two earlier, it was the King of the Belgians whose men in Africa had cut off hands." (p296)

"King Leopold's Ghost" confirms what Joseph Conrad had written in the Heart of Darkness. However what is really unfortunate is the politics…… [Read More]

Hsia's Story

Hsia's Story

Seventeenth-century China as depicted by C.T Hsia and in its works of fiction was a feudal, authoritarian society dominated by Confusion values of duty, honor, obedience and fidelity to parents, siblings and spouses. At the same time, clearly there were many young men and women who defy this authoritarian, Confucian culture and express their desires for more personal freedom and happiness, although Hsia has overlooked the main reason for this. Opposition to the old feudal order already existed in the cities and towns by the 17th Century, at least among the younger members of the merchant and student middle classes. No matter that the lower classes hardly appear in the stories at all, except for mostly anonymous servants, laborers and peasants, the middle class young seem to be attempting their own Romeo and Juliet Revolution of the type that had begun in the West around the same time.…… [Read More]

King Leopolds Ghost Human Rights

Human Rights: King Leopold's Ghost

King Leopold's Ghost: Human Rights

Conflicting arguments have been put forth in response to the question of whether or not colonialism is justified. Proponents of colonialism argue that it helps to bring civilization, progress and growth in the colonizer's religion. However, evidence shows that colonialism only benefits the colonialist nation at the expense of the colonized population. This text demonstrates why this is so using the book 'King Leopold's Ghost' by Adam Hochschild.

Those that plundered the Congo and other parts of Africa did so in the name of progress, civilization, and Christianity? Was this hypocritical? How? What justifications for colonial imperialism have been put forward over the past five centuries?

Simply stated, colonial imperialism is the establishment and maintenance of a nation's ruler over an alien nation that is subordinate, yet separate from the ruling power. Imperial powers from ancient to modern periods have…… [Read More]

Chinese Stories about Cultural Hybridity

Wandering in the Garden and Soul Mountain

In comparing and contrasting the literary techniques of "Wandering in the Garden, Waking from a Dream" and "Soul Mountain," one of the biggest contrasts between the two stories is perspective: Gao Xingjian's "Soul Mountain" is written in the 2nd person, while Pai Hsien-yung's "Wandering in the Garden" is written in 3rd person. The narrator in each story is omniscient, which is their biggest similarity -- but the two differ in style in the sense that "Wandering in the Garden" has a stream-of-consciousness manner that runs through it, taking the reader deep into the main characters thoughts as she revisits her past. The style of "Soul Mountain" is much more descriptive and focused on producing the effect of putting the reader at the heart of the action -- after all, the reader is the subject of the narrative and so it is almost like…… [Read More]

Oresteia Story as Trilogy of Events Written

Oresteia story, as trilogy of events written by Aeschylus, revolves around revenge.

In the first sequel, Agamemnon, Clytemnestra murders both her husband Agamemnon and his concubine, Cassandra, a priestess of the Greek god, Apollo. Cassandra had received prophecy of her imminent murder as well as future events that will befall the House of Atreus, but she had been restrained by Apollo from publicizing her vision since she had rejected his advances. Aegisthus's cousin and Clytemnestra's adulterer now assumes the throne with the chorus reminding the audience that avenge will soon ensue. In sequel two, The Libation Bearers, Agamemnon's children Electra and Orestes kill Clytemnestra to avenge the death of their father. He flees the palace with the Furies, deities that avenge patricide and matricide, chasing him and the Chorus informing us that the cycle of revenge will continue.

In the final sequal, The Eumenides, the ghost of Clytemnestra pushes the…… [Read More]

Rose Emely 1st Person Account Short Story

rose emely, 1st person account short story miss emely's point view, text reference quoting parenthetical citations.

"A Rose for Emily:" A first-person account of Emily's point-of-view

I remember what my father the Colonel used to say: never forget that you are a Grierson and you are my daughter. Other people wanted me to forget. The new people of my town, with their new money, with their shiny suits and Northern ways. But I never forgot.

They wanted me to pay taxes. Did they not know that I never had any taxes, nor did my father? How dare they! I remember my father laughing and tearing up the tax notices when they came to our house. It was not done, simply not done. The fact that I had to actually come myself to inform them of this truth was a sad sign of the times.

My father loved me, even though…… [Read More]

Piano Lesson Ghosts of the

This is certainly suggested in Boy illie's ruthless and callous demeanor with respect to an heirloom for which his father gave his life. Doaker reports at one point that "he say he gonna cut it in half and go on and sell his half. They been around here three days trying to sell them watermelons. They trying to get out to where the white folks live but the truck keep breaking down. They go a block or two and it break down again. They trying to get out to Squirrel Hill and can't get around the corner. He say soon as he can get that truck empty to where he can set the piano up in there he gonna take it out of here and go sell it." (ilson, 29)

Boy illie's representation of the blind ambition to advance casts this path in a particularly negative light, but also denotes…… [Read More]

An Ad a Poem a Short Story and a Song

Ad located: http://Www.topdesignmag.com/Awesome-Collection-of-Print-Ads/
The France ADOT advertisement for organ donation has an intended audience of all healthy people, who are in the position of registering for being official organ donors. The means of persuasion is emotional, as the image is of a hospital bed and a man hugging a transparent, ghost-like image of an elder. The suggestion is that the elder has passed on, and that the organs of that person are keeping alive the young man in the bed. A strong story is being told, given that the organ donor is of a different ethnic background from the recipient. The suggestion is that organ donation can help save the life of a total stranger. The method of persuasion is emotional and explicit, showing that it will help others to register as an organ donor, because once a person is dead, those organs can either be used to save the…… [Read More]

The Plot Story of Ubu Roi

Ubu Roi

State the story of the whole play (2 sentences max). Ubu ROI is the story of Papa Turd and Mama Turd, who kill the king of Poland, seize the country's riches, and then must face the wrath of Russia and the escaped prince. Papa Turd and Mama Turd display greed, sloth, and absurd notions of grandeur before they are finally routed by the prince and forced to flee on a ship, where they hope to begin the con man type of existence all over again upon landing ashore in the next country.

State the story of Act I. Act I describes how Papa and Mama Turd along with Bordure plot to kill Poland's king. Papa Turd poisons Bordure's soldiers and then the three of them swear to murder the king.

State the story of Act II. Papa Turd kills the king of Poland but the queen and the…… [Read More]

Magic Realism

Toni Morrison's Beloved

This story works to capture the essence of slavery's aftermath for its characters. It tells a truth created in flashback and ghost story. It aims to create mysticism only memory can illustrate. "The novel is meant to give grief a body, to make it palpable" (Gates, 29). The characters are trapped in the present because they are imprisoned by the horrors of slavery. They are literally held hostage in their home, isolated from the outside world. In many ways Beloved represents a geographically realistic neo-slave narrative by presenting in flashback the experiences of Sethe. This story also has the fantastic element of a ghost who later becomes flesh and bone. The paragraphs below explore the characters memories and the magical realism of a ghost.

Memory affects the character of Sethe in a way that illustrates the pain and grief of her past enslavement. Sethe is living with…… [Read More]

Real and the Imagined Looking

She longs for their love and the ghosts pose a threat to this. Since she cannot control the ghosts or make them go away, she must protect the children from them. Lydenberg asserts the governess' complete possession of the children is contingent upon the continuation of the threat" (283). He believes the governess wants the ghosts to actually exist to keep the children close to her. It is also his belief that she wants to be the possessor of the children's souls, not anyone or anything else and she will do whatever it takes to make that happen. hen Miles expresses a desire to return to school, she is taken aback. She knows Miles' uncle deserves to know the truth, as she knows it, but she cannot bring herself to tell him for fear of consternation. She thinks, "I could so little face the ugliness and the pain of it…… [Read More]

Assembling Culture Archives Documents Exhibitions

Assembling Culture

Assembling Southern Appalachian Belief Culture from the Foxfire Archive

This project looks at the belief structure of people in the Southern Appalachian mountains as recognized through the Foxfire archival project, documentary evidence and artistic interpretation. Through an examination of belief systems it is believed that unique cultural aspects of this isolated group of people can be determined. The Foxfire project is an archive that documents how the people lived prior to the mass introduction of outside influences that happened concurrent to the ability of residents to electrify their houses which occurred from approximately 1935 and into the 1950's. Prior to this time the residents of these southeastern mountains were isolated due to the remoteness of villages, and they were able to remain relatively self-contained even though some sections were being encroached by industry. The belief systems in this examination include religion and healing, but mainly relate to how…… [Read More]

Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days Post-Modernism

..I am with you, and know how it is." Cunningham utilizes this idea of hitman's timelessness to weave him through the narratives that build character in his work. hitman's issues are clearly still timely as his call to question those things that are seen as progress is universal in the developed and developing worlds, alike. Post-modernism is also often though to as post-colonial as the standardization of borders has seemed to stagnate over the last 50 or so years and colonization is conducted in much subtler ways, than were evident in alt's lifetime. Cunningham, no doubt weaves his artistic interpretation of hitman into his works, but it is clear that it is with the careful reader's vision of the subtle and constructionist leanings of hitman. Cunningham's writing is truly an incarnation of the relevance of hitman to the modern context. He utilizes the turn of many an artful phrase to…… [Read More]

Turn of the Screw in

It is after all a ghost story, so one may assume, just based on the conventions of the genre, that the two apparitions in the story are indeed evil. Supposing the reader takes the narrator at her word, there is evidence to support that the red-headed lecher, Peter Quint, and his infamously beautiful paramour, Miss Jessel, are the hell raisers the Governess makes them out to be.

The Governess describes Miss Jessel in demonic terms when she spies her across the lake, "Another person -- this time; but a figure of quite as unmistakable horror and evil: a woman in black, pale and dreadful -- with such an air also, and such a face! -- on the other side of the lake. I was there with the child -- quiet for the hour; and in the midst of it she came" (James). According to this initial description, Miss Jessel fits…… [Read More]

Simic Nabokov Speak Memory Is

Simic

Charles Simic's poem "My Mother Was a Braid of Black Smoke" appears in New and Selected Poems, 1962-2012. The poem is the story of the poet's genesis, and it is difficult for the reader to distinguish between what is actual memory and what is the impression or imagination of the speaker. The first stanza starts, "My mother was a braid of black smoke." The imagery in this stanza, with his mother's "swaddling," conveys the sense that Simic's childhood was not a wealthy or happy one. The cities were "burning cities," perhaps reference to the outbreak of war. When the speaker says "We met many others who were just like us," the reader gets the sense that they were outcasts. This imagery is in direct contradiction with the second stanza's imagery. For instance, the second stanza refers to gypsies, and distinguishes the speaker's family from the gypsies. "I was stolen…… [Read More]

Sleepy Hollow as Popular Culture

First, evil in Sleepy Hollow is more equating with a satirical view that, in this case, evil is a more benign humor, bumbling, caustic in disrupting the town, and, as it was in Ancient Greek and oman drama, simply more of an irritant than planned destruction. Focusing again on the time period, our first introduction to this theme is one of Dutch New York against Urban New England. The Dutch community is sylvan, nostalgically conceived, changeless, and an Eden for its inhabitants. Ichabod arrives as a Yankee whose spoiling of this Eden simply cannot be tolerated -- and even more, by marrying the daughter of a wealthy and high-ranking community member, becoming part of Eden himself. This simply could not happen to a community that is so "European in nature."

Sleepy Hollow, as a town is clearly Dutch, with Dutch values, culture, and mores, or for riving, "population, manners, and…… [Read More]

Children's Books Belitz L The

Scholastic: 1993

Curious young astronomers who ask, "what are stars made of?" And "Why do astronauts float in space?" will find answers here. A brief survey of the universe in a question and answers format.

Reading level: Ages 4-8

Paperback: 28 pages

ISBN: 0439465834

Tayleur, K. Excuses! Survive and Succeed by David Montimore Baxter. (Mankato, MN) Stone Arch Books: 2007

Young David Mortimore Baxter, who knows how to stay out of trouble, shares excuses for avoiding chores, bullies, homework, and vegetarian dinners. David experiences his fifteen minutes of fame and the impacts it has on his friends and family.

Reading level: 9-12

Paperback: 80 pages

ISBN: 1598892053

Williams, M. The Velveteen Rabbit. Square Fish: 2008.

By the time the velveteen rabbit is dirty, worn out, and about to be burned, he has almost given up hope of ever finding the magic of love. The original "Toy Story."

Reading level: Ages…… [Read More]

Hangings a Means of Execution

hanging is a means of execution," this topic will be further elaborated and explained with the help of the examples from a short story written by Ambrose Bierce.This short story includes the subject which is "hanging," the examples from the story would be provided in the paper so as to back up the arguments which will be included in the paper.

Hanging has been utilized as a mode of execution for as long as man can remember, there have been more executions by this method than any other means. The procedure is simple; and yet there have been more botched executions by this method than by any other. Essentially, execution by hanging is strangulation, effected by restricting the executee's air supply at the neck, unconsciousness occurring between two and four minutes and death within ten, resulting in death by asphyxiation. This, however, is not humane." http://users.bestweb.net/~rg/execution/Protocol%20Hanging.htm

As far as the…… [Read More]

Pirates Celia Rees for Project I Writing

Pirates Celia Rees for project, I writing a magazine-style book review .The review include ... 1.Include a summary, include: genre importance setting, characters, plot.

When it comes to books that present themselves autobiographical, the question in issue is whether or not people show an interest. However, Celia Rees' Pirates! is, what is called, a fictional autobiography. Nancy, the book's protagonist and narrator, is attentive enough to warn us that "what follows" is not just the typical story of a sixteen years old girl, but one that may seem "a little extravagant, to have something of the air of a novel." She is just as careful, mind you, in warning the audience that "this is no fiction" and that the reader should jump to no conclusions until he has read the story through to the end.

This trick of autobiographical fiction often does its work and captures the reader's attention, more…… [Read More]

Edgar Allen Poe Tale of Premeditated Murder

Edga Allen Poe tale of pemeditated mude such as "The Cask of Amontillado," eades will immediately delight in the autho's skill at suspense. Like wandeing though dakened and ancient catacombs, eading "The Cask of Amontillado" stis the imagination and maintains tension thoughout its eeie passages. Deepe analysis lends insight into Poe's employment of vaious liteay techniques to impat this sense of the tale being a campfie ghost stoy. Poe's cleve use of iony, both damatic and vebal, contibutes to the shot stoy's suspenseful mood. The opening line of "The Cask of Amontillado" whispe Monteso's plan of evenge: "The thousand injuies of Fotunato I had bone as I best could, but when he ventued upon insult, I vowed evenge," (Poe,). Befoe any action occus, the eade is made awae of the intentions of the naato. This damatic display of iony allows the eade to fully engage and paticipate in the tale.…… [Read More]

Close Reading of Sylvia's Lovers

Sylvia's Lovers is a rich and gratifying historical novel, which does not put on a pedestal imprudent behavior. In the novel, not only does Gaskell describe the significant historical events but also exposes the impacts that these historical events can have on the lives of lower class members of the society. The violence of war disrupts people's social lives, making them go for desperate choices, which change the bearings their lives take. This brings about a lot of misery among the people, especially those from the lower social class. The novel exemplifies the effects of the war on people integrating the social class (middle class and the poor). This is evident through out the novel including the marriage between Philip and Sylvia, and Charleys forceful recruitment into the navy.

orks Cited

Bowen, John. "The Historical Novel." A Companion to the Victorian Novel. Eds. Brantlinger Patrick, and illiam Thesing. Oxford: John…… [Read More]

Magical Realism From James to

In another type of story, this reaction would simply be the fantasy-action hero's resolve to beat the bad evil spirits. This story, however, is far more realistic, and there is even some question a to whether or not the ghosts are real. The governess convinces herself that the children, Flora and Miles, can see the ghosts and are pretending not to out of some sort of collusion with them against her. She fears the ghosts not for herself, but for the corrupting influence she believes they are having on the children (and the influence the two individuals she believes them to be had on Flora and Miles in life). Yet one very possible interpretation of the novel is that the governess is the only one who actually sees the ghosts, and may even be hallucinating. At one point, when confronting Flora about the ghost, she remarks, "I quailed even though…… [Read More]

Psychoanalytical Reading of the Turn

James does imply in the prologue of the Turn of the Screw that there is a deeper meaning to the governess' narrative than merely a straightforward ghost story. So it is unlikely that, as some critics claim, it was merely meant to be a simple ghost story with no deeper meaning or symbolism. However interpretation of the tale has sometimes been taken to the opposite extreme as well, with critics reading far too much in certain dialogue, passages and references than the author likely ever intended. Ultimately, Sigmund Freud would probably have a field day interpreting the sexual repression of the critics who have analyzed this novella so intently.

orks Cited

Cefalu, Paul a. "Rethinking the Discourse of Colonialism in Economic Terms: Shakespeare's the Tempest, Captain John Smith's Virginia Narratives, and the English Response to Vagrancy." Shakespeare Studies. 28 (2000): 85-119.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw: And Other…… [Read More]

Screw by Henry James Due

With that, definition of this piece has not yet been completed. The New York Times continued with "the strongest and most affecting argument against sin we have lately encountered in literature." At that, through a process of self-annihilation, this journalist went on to "express the awful, almost overpowering sense of the evil that human nature is subject to derive from it [the story] by the sensitive reader." He judged the story as "one of the most moving and...most remarkable works of fiction published in many years."

Timing; it was all about timing. Ahhh, but there is more...

The Detroit Free Press termed the work a "horribly successful study of depravity, equal in stature to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." On that exact day, as recorded in the New York Tribune on October 23, 1898, (p. 14), this novella "crystallizes an original and fascinating idea in absolutely appropriate form."

Further, both…… [Read More]

Screw at Its Most Superficial

She is in the stereotypical subservient housemaid role, and she does not divulge her sexual identity either.

Sexual knowledge is also intimately equated with death in Turn of the Screw. The title suggests at once the screws in a coffin but also the sexual act. The governess sees ghosts instead of fulfilling her desire to have sex with the father of the children she hawks over. hile the governess seems assertive at times, brave enough to look into the eyes of a stranger and a ghost, she is also too timid to directly confront the father of the children. His request that she never contact him seems ridiculous, given Flora and Miles are his children. The fact that the governess obeys the orders at all shows that she lacks the internal conviction and self-confidence to assert herself. Feminist theories of identity formation therefore lend a considerable amount of insight into…… [Read More]

Otherness Quality of Gothic Fiction Otherness in

Otherness" Quality of Gothic Fiction

Otherness in Wapole and Lewis

The construct of otherness is represented in Gothic fiction in three primary ways: (1) An underlying emphasis on the supernatural is a strong platform to presenting a sense of the other to readers. (2) Moreover, women are portrayed in a manner that characterizes them as being very different from men. (3) The behavior of the characters and the situations in which they find themselves and put themselves is profoundly different from the quotidian experiences of the readers, thereby imparting a separation between fiction and real life that comfortably maintains the characters in some kind of otherland.

The "Otherness" of the Supernatural

With his 1764 writing of the novel The Castle of Otranto, Horace Wapole is said to have invented the Gothic novel genre -- a classification that relies heavily on representation of the supernatural. In the minds of contemporary readers,…… [Read More]

Ambrose Bierce Facts About Bierce's

After Fuentes novel, later was made a film, " Old Gringo," with Gregory Peck in the title role.

Bierce also joined the characters of the movie From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (set in 1913, a prequel to the original From Dusk Till Dawn). Bierce was an inspiring figure for the producer of the movie. In the film he is first attacked y andits, and then trapped in a ar filled with vampires determined to kill all the humans inside. This clearly fictional adventure also portrayed Bierce as an alcoholic. In that film Amrose Bierce was played y Michael Parks.

Bierce appears as a character in Roert A. Heinlein's uses Amrose Bierce as a character for his novella " Lost Legacy," (pulished in the short story collection Assignment in Eternity). In the story, Bierce has advanced mental powers.

A http: The story purpose is to present Bierce's manuscript…… [Read More]

Kitchen God the Main Protagonists

..I ask you, isn't that fate meant to be?" Now, Pearl realizes that Winnie's fatalism is not all negative. That, too, she has not understood about her mother and what keeps her going. Pearl recognizes the strength never left her mother. For the sake of her daughter, she kept on going. Her greatest fault: becoming disillusioned with life. But now, she can perhaps work on those feelings, because she will not be bearing them alone. She will also have Pearl's strength to help her as she becomes older.

As she tells Pearl her life story, Winnie feels so much weight being lifted off her shoulders. She first apologizes for not having told Pearl about how her grandmother abandoned her six-year-old daughter. This has to be the most difficult thing for Winnie to talk about, since she, like Pearl, did not want to admit things to herself that were too hurtful.…… [Read More]

Feminism in Frankenstein Introduction

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley claims that the Publishers of Standard Novels specifically requested that she "furnish them with some account of the origin of the story," (16). However, the Publishers of Standard Novels did not simply want to know how the author had considered the main premise, plot, and theme of the Frankenstein story but that the story -- and its female authorship -- seemed contrary to prevailing gender norms. According to Shelley, the publishers wondered, "how I, then a young girl, came to think of, and to dilate upon, so very hideous an idea?" (16). If young girls were supposed to be sugar, spice, and everything nice, then a story about a monstrous creation would seem antithetical to the 19th century feminine ideal. Not only that, Mary Shelley intuited the publishers' surprise with the author's gender, for no sooner does Shelley launch into a carefully crafted response to their query,…… [Read More]

Emile Zola and the Movies the Translation

Emile Zola and the Movies

The translation of any work of literature into another medium, even one apparently so closely aligned with the written word as film, is always a chancy proposition. While literature and film focus themselves on the same targets within the minds of their audiences; that of completing an organic connection between the conception and the reception of an idea, the very natures of the two disciplines demand different things of the person who is reading or watching the material. As exciting and enveloping as the best film experience may be, it is still, in its essence a passive experience; every action is already determined, "painted," and set in celluloid by the filmmaker. On the other hand, literature demands much more of its audience. Even when a writer devotes paragraphs to descriptions of various characters or activities, the reader still plays an integral part in the final…… [Read More]

Kitchen God's Wife by Amy

Chapter 3 elucidated clearly on this point, highlighting Weili's tendency to think of a setback once a solution emerges from a problem; these series of setbacks resulted to her inability to decide for herself, for in all of these setbacks, another person's welfare was put into consideration, rather than Weili's own welfare (70-1).

Adams (2003) considered Weili's psyche as a response to her previous past, specifically, when she was raped by Wen Fu in the midst of the Sino-Japanese War. Adams drew an analogy from this event in Weili's life, illustrating how the supposed "Rape of Nanking" was made more concrete and specific to her experience, depicting Wen Fu as the Japanese who invaded Nanking, and Weili epitomizing her fellow Chinese women, who became the direct victims of this historical tragedy (12). Weili's coping mechanism, which is the creation of made-up histories, became her response to the two kinds of…… [Read More]

Comparative Study Between Homer's Odyssey and the Coen Brothers O Brother Where Art Thou

O rother, Where Art Thou?

Homer in Hollywood: The Coen rothers' O rother, Where Art Thou?

Could a Hollywood filmmaker adapt Homer's Odyssey for the screen in the same way that James Joyce did for the Modernist novel? The idea of a high-art film adaptation of the Odyssey is actually at the center of the plot of Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 film Contempt, and the Alberto Moravia novel on which Godard's film is based. In Contempt, Prokosch, a rich American dilettante film producer played by Jack Palance, hires Fritz Lang to film a version of Homer's Odyssey, then hires a screenwriter to write it and promptly ruins his marriage to rigitte ardot. Fritz Lang gamely plays himself -- joining the ranks of fellow "arty" German-born directors who had earlier deigned to act before the camera (like Erich von Stroheim in Wilder's Sunset oulevard, playing a former director not unlike himself, or…… [Read More]

American Lit Definition of Modernism and Three

American Lit

Definition of Modernism and Three Examples

Indeed, creating a true and solid definition of modernism is exceptionally difficult, and even most of the more scholarly critical accounts of the so-called modernist movement tend to divide the category into more or less two different movements, being what is known as "high modernism," which reflected the erudition and scholarly experimentalism of Eliot, Joyce, and Pound, and the so-called "low modernism" of later American practitioners, such as William Carlos Williams. Nonetheless, despite the problems of reification involved with such a task, I will attempt to invoke a definitions of at least some traits of modernism, as culled from the Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics:

First, [in modernism] "realization" had to replace description, so that instead of copying the external world the work could render it in an image insisting on its own forms of reality... [and] Second, the poets develop…… [Read More]

Use of Pop Culture in Education

Popular Culture in the Classroom

From the wide range of materials teachers can use in the classroom, popular culture is one of the best sources. They appear to public attention as the indication of the rapid growth of the society. Many of the pop culture icons are mostly well-known, regionally and internationally. Students enjoy working with pop culture that they are familiar with. Some of them think that such materials are less intimidating than heavy textbooks. With appropriate use and organized application, the pop icons can be remarkable teaching tools in the classroom. eading sources and mass produced resources are widely available in all seasons, giving teachers plentiful options.

Despite the 'pop' reputation, the community does not need to worry that these materials would wreck the traditional schooling rules. Modern people are quite erudite to recognize popular culture items more than just as second-class articles. In fact, the culture symbols…… [Read More]

Contenders Challenges the Depth of the Line

Contenders challenges the depth of the line between the so called reality-based survival shows and fictionalized genres. Series 7 to the greatest degree is a spoof on the idea that a game with real stakes, reputed to be stakes of life and death could truly exist within an entertainment venue. Series 7 proposes that the impact of such a situation upon the viewer can only be judged through the representative stakes of just that, life or death. The represented goal of the film is the actual violent death of opponent players in the game. The implications of such a production weigh heavily upon the viewing public and leave many questions to be answered by the phenomena of television ratings. Though the Series 7 movie is an attempt to challenge the lines between reality and fiction, in much the same way the sensational Blair itch Project did a few years before…… [Read More]

Belief and Knowledge the 13

The Aztecs believed 13 to be a sacred number. The Aztec week was thirteen days long and the number was respected as a measure of time and completion (Number 13, 2010). The Aztec calendar year was 260 days long, which was calculated as 20, thirteen day periods, called Trecenas. The goddess Tlazolteotl was the ruler of the 13th Trecena, who was the goddess of sin and could forgive sins (Number 13, 2010). In Hinduism, the thirteenth night of the waning moon in the month of Maagha is sacred to Shiva, and notes a cause for celebration of creation and preservation (Number 13, 2010). For those reading tarot cards, the tarot 13 is the card of death. In Scandinavia, the day of the Saint Lucia celebration is December 13th (Number 13, 2010). egarding United States currency, the number 13 is seemingly glorified. On the one dollar bill, there are 13 leaves…… [Read More]

American Jewess the Jewish-American Woman

1897-1898

1896 saw the expansion of the American Jewess with the opening of a New York office, though the content of the magazine appeared largely unchanged at the beginning of 1897. The January issue of the publication contains many articles that were themed similarly to the previous issues of the magazine, though there is a decidedly more practical nature to many of the articles included in the issue. "Household hints" and similar sections had been regular appearances in the magazine since its inception, but this issue contains articles on creating happiness in the home and on the history of the shoe -- with a definite feminist-Jewish perspective. hile still engaging in abstract, intellectual and scholarly pursuits, the content of the magazine is also shifting towards direct daily usefulness.

The issues began to shorten noticeably as 1897 progressed, and as the number of articles depleted the ratio of directly targeted articles…… [Read More]

Veidemanis a High-School English Teacher

Second, it provides an excellent introduction "to a unit on the Romantic Era in English literature" with its spirit in line with Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lord yron and Percy Shelley. Third, the novel is truly "the work of a gifted woman writer who merits study and recognition" (62). One aspect of Shelley's life which is quite extraordinary is that she heard Samuel Taylor Coleridge recite the "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" which clearly influenced Shelley's use of the supernatural in her novel.

Fourth, Veidemanis maintains that the novel's central theme, being "scientific aims pursued in reckless disregard of human consequences," has much significance in today's modern scientific age related to biological and genetic engineering and raises the question "Should limits be placed on scientific endeavor?" A reference to Victor Frankenstein and his "reckless disregard" for the possible consequences of his experiments with the dead and the creation of a human monster.…… [Read More]

Impressions of War the Most

" There is a more calm feeling to his description. This is not to say that the author was portraying war as being a patriotic act, but the author was not as graphical in his describing what the soldiers were seeing and going through. The reader is more connected to the actions of the poem and not the fact that someone is dying. He ends his poem by referencing "hell" and the reader is left wondering whether the hell that he is referring to the war that is being left behind, or to dying itself.

3) Rites of Passage Activity

In speaking to my grandmother, I was able to find out what it was that she took when she first left her home. At the age of sixteen, she was married to my grandfather and was getting ready to start her knew life as a wife and very soon, as…… [Read More]

Man With the Gash a

Kent on the other hand cannot prevent himself from gazing again and again at the man's scar and making all sorts of stupid remarks. He also fails to stop the sailor from controlling him and he is absorbed by -- enslaved to -- his superstitions:

This was the real Man with the Gash, the man who had so often robbed him in the spirit. This, then, was the embodied entity of the being whose astral form had been projected into his dreams, the man who had so frequently harbored designs against his hoard; hence -- there could be no other conclusion -- this Man with the Gash had now come in the flesh to dispossess him. And that gash! He could no more keep his eyes from it than stop the beating of his heart. Try as he would, they wandered back to that one point as inevitably as the…… [Read More]

Oxford Book of Caribbean Short

They were zigzagging through the sugar cane field, a truly bizarre scene.

Also in Mendoza, it is a dark and evil scene as Mendoza's body is tied to the back of a donkey but the body kept sliding down under the donkey ("ass"). There is no respect for the dead here in this scene, and to take his bloody, muddy, and wet body to his wife's house, and throw it down in the threshold -- that is profoundly evil. He never had a chance, and now his family has to pay the price. The evil and "horrible grimace" that was on the face of the dead Mendoza must have been a terrible shock to his family and his children. His son (who had found what he thought was a corpse) now saw a real corpse, ironically the person he had seen earlier and mistaken for a corpse -- his own…… [Read More]