Themes of love, nature, God, death, and insanity in contemporary literature
This paper examines the theme of beauty in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman and in T. S. Eliot's "Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The two authors examine the lack of beauty in characters of the modern world, and show how they suffer as a result of not having found or possessed anything truly beautiful or good in their lives.
Portrait of a Lady and the objectification of character
This story begins with the main character in the book, Isabel arriving at Gardencourt from America. Ralph, another main character in this book realizes that Isabel is destitute and talks his father into leaving Isabel some of his fortune in the amount of 70,000 pounds. This however, only begins the troubles for Isabel. Madame Merle, a wealthy woman herself sees that she can benefit from Isabel's money and introduces Isabel to Osmond. In the end, Isabel has herself lost much of her own self-identification and self-worth and has ultimately grown to recognize herself as having value only according to the value assigned to her by others Isabel understands that she is viewed as an object and ultimately defines herself as an object, although one of great value and worth.