Protagonist Essays (Examples)

Extra-Credit Questions

Questions on Readings

There are different kinds of peril that a person can find himself (in this case) in, and Macready and Macon Detornay find themselves embedded in several of them, in large measure because of their own actions, including their own attitudes about the position that they hold in the world in which they spend their lives. Detornay is more clearly culpable for the problems in which he finds himself because these are dangers into which he places himself. Lacking what he perceives to be an authentic life, he casts off the superficial markers of the community in which he has been raised and to which his life has accommodated him, he pretends that he can live a more authentic life by becoming what he sees as an urban black. Not only does this place him at occasional physical risk but on a consistent basis in moral…

Indeed, the trajectory of the narrative involves exacting revenge on those who prevented her marriage from taking place.

Although the Bride's marital aspirations might suggest that she holds a conservative sensibility, this is far from the case and she is ultimately more aggressive than Jen. While Jen also exhibits physical prowess, her sacrificial gesture at the film's conclusion signifies how she maintains a strong reverence for the Confucian moral code, assimilating her within the wuxia genre. Physically, the Bride resembles a dominatrix; she is taller than many of the characters and fights in a relentlessly savage manner (even going so far as to bite her adversary in one scene.) in contrast, Jen is more diminutive and her face and eyes are softer and less predatory. Where the Bride looks much more imposing than an average person, Jen has an average size that is not dissimilar from the other characters. Indeed,…

Heroine

If there is anything that we as a society love deeply…it's a hero. Both children and adults alike are drawn to heroes in both reality and fantasy. Children grow up being regaled by stories of the prince saving the princess and adults beam over happy endings in movies where the hero saves the day. Most people would describe the role as hero as someone, who defies the odds, is a champion for the people, and who physically or possibility even emotionally or spiritually rescues others. A hero may even possess unconventional ethics and approaches, but the constant is that a hero looks out for the greater good of others, particularly the minority whose voices have been silenced by the majority. This paper will provide a subjective definition of a "modern heroine" as well as present a discussion of an protagonist I deem a hero in Alice alker's novel "The…

Works Cited

Gates, Henry Louis, and Anthony Appiah. Alice Walker: critical perspectives past and present. New York: Amistad:, 1993. Print.

Walker, Alice. Her blue body everything we know: earthling poems, 1965-1990 complete. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991. Print.

Walker, Alice. The color purple. Repr. ed. London: Women's Press, 1993. Print.

"Women of the Century: 100 Years of American Heroes - DiscoverySchool.com." Free Teacher Resources | Discovery Education N.p., n.d. Web. 14 May 2012.

Exile

Literary Characters in Exile

Exile can be the self-imposed banishment from one's home or given as a form of punishment. The end result of exile is solitude. Exile affords those in it for infinite reflection of themselves, their choices, and their lives in general. Three prominent literary characters experience exile as part of the overall narrative and in that, reveal a great deal about themselves to themselves as well as to the readers. The three narratives in questions are "The Epic of Gilgamesh," "The Tempest," and "Things Fall Apart." All of the main characters of these narratives experience exile as a result of actions taken by the protagonists at earlier points in the story. The protagonist in each respective story are exiled because of their choices and the exile forces each character to face consequences that ultimately bring their inner character to the surface in a more direct manner…

References:

Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. New York: First Anchor Books Edition, 1994.

Mason, Herbert. Gilgamesh A Verse Narrative. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2003.

Shakespeare, William. "The Tempest." Ed. Barbara A. Mowat & Paul Werstine. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1994.

Sutton, Brian. "Virtue Rather Than Vengeance": Genesis and Shakespeare's The Tempest." Explicator, Vol. 66, No. 4, 224-229.

As in the first story, culture is not just a sub-theme; it is defined in the setting, in the conflict, in the characters and the tone of the story. In this case it involves leaving one culture (low income) and joining the high-tone community of wealth. Mrs. Jordan did not have to start suckling babies for a living, although when her son Leo, her own flesh and blood, becomes wealthy, and shuns his mother. Leo leaves his poor mother just a thousand shillings a month for her subsistence. It is obvious that Leo -- due to his rise into the cultural stratosphere of great wealth -- has become aloof, selfish, and lost his interest in family matters, or perhaps his humanity per se; he's been giving his aging mother a thousand shillings for twenty years without a raise to cover inflation. Notwithstanding the shabby treatment, Mrs. Jordan is in denial…

Works Cited

Bachmann, Ingeborg. "The Barking." In German Women Writers of the Twentieth Century,

E. Herrmann & E. Spits, Eds. London: Pergamon Press, 1978, pp. 78-86.

Devi, Mahasweta. "Breast-Giver." In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics, G.

Spivak, Ed. New York & London: Metheum, 1987, pp. 222-240.

Beaux Strategem by George Farquhar is about two greedy and recently broke men who plan to seduce heiresses to steal their fortune. The main characters are Aimwell and Archer who pose as a well-to-do gentleman and his manservant. The cast of characters include: Aimwell, Archer, Count Bellair a French officer, prisoner at Litchfield, Sullen a country blockhead, brutal to his wife, Freeman a gentleman from London, Foigard a priest, chaplain to the French officers, Gibbet a high-way-man, Houslow, his companions, Bagshot, Boniface the landlord of the inn, Scrub a servant to Mr. Sullen, Lady Bountiful an old civil country gentlewoman, that cures all her neighbours of all distemper, Dorinda Lady Bountiful's daughter, Mrs. Sullen her daughter-in-law, Gipsy maid to the ladies. The 2013 production is directed by Adam Simon and keeps quick pace and crisp dialogue to allow this latest production breathe new life to a 200+ year old play.…

Fantastic Literature

Todorov revised

FANTASTIC LITEATUE IN "THE DEAD LOVE"

The hesitation of characters when confronted with questions of reality is clearly depicted in The Dead Lover and becomes the driving force of the plot through the experiences of the protagonist omuald as recounted by him at the age of sixty-six. The hesitation of omuald to confront the question of which of his experiences -- the ones as the priest or the one as Seignior omuald of Venice -- are real forms the basis of much of the plot. This hesitation is built into the constitution and personality of the protagonist as he is a young priest recently ordained and is not mature enough to deal with the temptations of the world that he comes across for the first time since his education in a cloistered environment is complete.

omuald's Hesitation to Accept the eality of his Vocation

The plot…

References

Gautier, Theophile. Theophile Gautier's Short Stories G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1909. pp. 175-244. Web.  http://www.archive.org/stream/thophilegauti00gaut#page/n13/mode/2up .

stapled) analyzing: Focus main character/protagonist/Narrator

The primary motif that drives the action in Junot Diaz's short story, "How to Date a Browngirl, a Blackgril, Whitegirl, or Halfie" is the concept of race. This fact is certainly suggested by the title of this narrative, and is one of the central concerns of the protagonist, a young man only referred to as Yunior. Like most young men of school age who live with their parents, Yunior desires physical intimacy with a girl -- as much as possible, in fact, during an evening's date. However, the author is deliberately ambiguous as to whether or not Yunior achieves his objective, by composing the narrative as a set of directives that do not include a definite "ending" in the sense that most short stories have. Yet it is quite obvious that everything in this short story (aside from Yunior's objective) -- such as what factors…

On a wider scale, the struggle of these immigrants would be familiar to many immigrants around the country. Many of them come to this country to contribute their talents and ideas. On a personal note, for example, my girlfriend's father Farouk is a West Indian immigrant from Trinidad & Tabago. After years of taking night classes, he earned his associate's degree in Electrical Enginnering. Today, Farouk is an engineer working with EMC. He is earning a good salary and holds seven patents with EMC.

Diaz's stories are an argument for keeping the American Dream open, for Farouk, for his characters and for the vast majority of immigrants who choose to come to the United States. After all, much of the progress of this country stems from its historical openness to immigrants. Thus, to safeguard the American Dream means to keep its ideals open to all.

eferences

Diaz, Junot. Drown. New…

References

Diaz, Junot. Drown. New York: Riverhead, 1997.

Edmonston, B. And J. Passel, eds. Immigration and Ethnicity: The Integration of America's Newest Arrivals. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1994.

Pagnini, D. And S.P. Morgan. "Intermarriage and Social Distance Among Immigrants at the Turn of the Century." American Journal of Sociology 96(1990):405-32.

find me a quiet, pretty girl, he wrote, not brash, like Calcutta girls are nowadays, not with too many western ideas. Someone who would be relieved to have her husband make the major decisions. But she had to be smart, at least a year of college, someone he could introduce to his friends with pride (Divakaruni).

This quotation shows how superficial and self-absorbed the narrator is. He does not desire an equal, or even someone he is compatible with. He wants a mate who will not oppose him ("quiet"), traditional, and who will not embarrass him in front of his friends due to an inferior intellect. This "pride" the author has referenced is truly the downfall of the narrator, who proves extremely dull-witted for believing if a woman can fulfill those limited requirements denoted in this quotation that she will love him, or stay with him. This quote also proves…

Works Cited

Divakaruni, Chitra Banerjee. "The Disappearance." www.actx.edu 1995. Web.  http://www.actx.edu/mldodson/filecabinet/17

y the final chapter, although Huck has come to like Silas and Sally, he knows that they are still a part of the society he has come to distrust and fear so, before the dust from his adventures is fully settled he is already planning to detach himself again:" but I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before" (chapter 43, Electronic text center, University of Virginia Library).

In Austen's novel the theme is to show the violation of the moral and social codes and its disastrous results in a humored way. While human follies and stupidities lead to the violation of the code and only the self-knowledge can prevent the human error, Jane Austen's main theme becomes to know yourself. Through self-analysis Emma changes…

Bibliography

Twain, Mark (1835-1910)

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library

 http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/Twa2Huc.html

This meant that men held positions of power and authority in all the public spheres including economics/business, politics/the law, and the bearing of arms. Men also possessed social status that women did not have, enabling the perpetuation of a patriarchal society.

y applying Freudian psychoanalysis and feminist theory, I will analyze the personality of the independent, strong, risk taker, and smart Alexandra ergson in Willa Cather's O Pioneer! As Smith points out in Freud's Philosophy of the Unconscious, the psychoanalytic model lends insight into the underlying psychic forces promoting personal and collective change. With regards to a singular female like Alexandra ergson, psychoanalysis takes into account the protagonist's family background, tracing her ego development across the course of her lifetime starting with childhood. The significance of my research is that it studies the possibility of female's success in life under certain circumstances and refutes the outmoded opinion that suggests the…

By applying Freudian psychoanalysis and feminist theory, I will analyze the personality of the independent, strong, risk taker, and smart Alexandra Bergson in Willa Cather's O Pioneer! As Smith points out in Freud's Philosophy of the Unconscious, the psychoanalytic model lends insight into the underlying psychic forces promoting personal and collective change. With regards to a singular female like Alexandra Bergson, psychoanalysis takes into account the protagonist's family background, tracing her ego development across the course of her lifetime starting with childhood. The significance of my research is that it studies the possibility of female's success in life under certain circumstances and refutes the outmoded opinion that suggests the leadership is a male-specific quality. Cather creates an overtly political novel with O Pioneer! As her protagonist single-handedly proves that women can be completely self-determined and self-reliant. This would have been a revolutionary view when Cather first published her novel.

The 1913 novel O Pioneer! By Willa Cather, one of the greatest American women writers, is a good illustration for the frontier literature in general, regardless of its political views on gender. However, Cather differentiates herself from her contemporaries and other writers in the Wild West genre, by stressing the other half of the human race: the half that is typically excluded from histories and literature alike. Cather accomplishes what Robinson comments on in "Treason Our Text," a feminist challenge to the accepted and established literary canon. The established canon of literature propagated by mainstream academia is a decidedly and unapologetically patriarchal one; that is, until the second wave of feminism (Robinson). It is therefore important to appreciate Cather's novel within her own historical context, which makes O Pioneer! truly revolutionary. Cather, although certainly not the first or only female American novelist, expands the canon of American literature by addressing the social, political, and economic worldviews from a more global and inclusive perspective, one that takes into account the lives of half of humanity. Patriarchal literature limits itself to constructing women out of stereotypes and projections of feminine ideals and mystiques; Cather simply tells it like it is (Duby, Perrot and Pantel).

The novels heroine embodies all feminine characters who disregard the complex American West during the time the novel was written. The narratives reveals out the difficulties experienced by women

Tom Shulich ("ColtishHum")

A comparative study on the theme of fascination with and repulsion from Otherness in Song of Kali by Dan Simmons and in the City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre

ABSACT

In this chapter, I examine similarities and differences between The City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (1985) and Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (1985) with regard to the themes of the Western journalistic observer of the Oriental Other, and the fascination-repulsion that inspires the Occidental spatial imaginary of Calcutta. By comparing and contrasting these two popular novels, both describing white men's journey into the space of the Other, the chapter seeks to achieve a two-fold objective: (a) to provide insight into the authors with respect to alterity (otherness), and (b) to examine the discursive practices of these novels in terms of contrasting spatial metaphors of Calcutta as "The City of Dreadful Night" or "The City of…

References

Barbiani, E. (2005). Kalighat, the home of goddess Kali: The place where Calcutta is imagined twice: A visual investigation into the dark metropolis. Sociological Research Online, 10 (1). Retrieved from  http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/barbiani.html 

Barbiani, E. (2002). Kali e Calcutta: immagini della dea, immagini della metropoli. Urbino: University of Urbino.

Cameron, J. (1987). An Indian summer. New York, NY: Penguin Travel Library.

Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger: An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. New York, NY: Routledge & K. Paul.

sher, Emma, Huck Finn, they all have a mentor at some point in their lives. Huck is guided by Jim, who although described like a child who needs constant guidance (like all the slaves were thought to be in that time), is often sounding like the voice of reason. sher is helped to follow his love for art by his mother first, then the Rebbe steps in and brings him under the guidance of Jakob Kahn, an experienced and famous artist who will act as his final mentor.

The protagonists in all three novels are very strong willed, intelligent young people who are willing to sacrifice a lot for their personal freedom and for their right to remain true to themselves. They are prepared to go a long way to find their vocation or the meaning of their life. lthough acting in their own interested, they are also dedicated to…

Austen, J. Drabble, M (contributor). 1996. Emma. Signet Classic

Potok, C. 2003. My Name is Asher Lev. Anchor

Twain, M. 1994. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: unabridged. Courier Dover Publications

His new wife wants to be Yuki's friend, but essentially, Yuki misses her mother and the loving relationship they had, and she is very unhappy. Her mother is portrayed as loving but weak and fragile, while her father and stepmother worry more about what other people will think than they do about Yuki. They also do not let her visit her mother's family as often as she would like, and that bothers her. Essentially, she grows up without love after her mother dies, and she has to come to terms not only with losing her mother but also with her own maturity and dreams for the future.

Two of these protagonists are immigrants, and they are all caught between two different worlds. How they react and how they manage to combine their cultures is the central point of all these books. Their families all hang on to their home culture,…

Claude Mulvihill could also be a major subplot character. His confrontation with Gittes leads to Gittes getting his nose slashed.

Ida Sessions, the woman who was hired to play Evelyn in the beginning of the film, would be considered a supporting character in Chinatown. She does not play a major role in the narrative, but she is there at key moments (it is her clues, for example, that allow Gittes to pursue the water scandal.) Walsh and Duffy, Gittes's partners, are also "helping characters" in this respect.

Part Four

With a film as complex in its plot as Chinatown, it certainly helps to reconstruct events chronologically when evaluating the plot of the movie.

As Chinatown is essentially a detective movie, there are numerous clues dropped throughout the movie that the viewer is expected to pick up on and draw inferences out of. One example is the fact that Gittes, who…

In the morning when he saw first his footman, then his wife, then his daughter, and then the doctor, their every word and movement confirmed to him the awful truth that had been revealed to him during the night. In them he saw himself -- all that for which he had lived -- and saw clearly that it was not real at all, but a terrible and huge deception which had hidden both life and death. This consciousness intensified his physical suffering tenfold. He groaned and tossed about, and pulled at his clothing which choked and stifled him. And he hated them on that account (Tolstoy, 1981)."

The above passage is a common theme to many as they pass through the acceptance of the inevitable, death.

In Hesse's work however,. The protagonist is not a boring quiet average Joe as Ivan appeared to be. In this work, Siddhartha, is a…

REFERENCES

Hesse, Herman. Siddartha Mass Market Paperback: 160 pages

Publisher: Bantam Classics; Reissue edition (January 1, 1982)

Tolstoy, Leo. The Death of Ivan Llych.

Publisher: Bantam Classics; Reissue edition (March 1, 1981)

instant he knew, he ceased to know.

hroughout the history of literature, authors have used their works to underscore beliefs that they hold dear. his can happen whether the work is fiction, non-fiction or a combination of both. he work of the author can illustrate a point by using obvious comparisons and angles or it can use a more subtle approach such as metaphors or other methods of illustration.

Even when the work is fiction, often times the true feelings and beliefs of the author are interlaced throughout the story. When someone writes a story their life experiences and events come into play even if it is on a subconscious level.

Jack London was an author whose work was originally taken at face value and it was only after his death that the world began to analyze and see the underpinnings of his meanings. He wrote books about things he…

The similarities in the way the two writers think and act are not something that can be ignored. It becomes important when the reader begins to detail the way the story illustrates the theory by Nietzsche about religion and man's need to have it. As the story unfolds the reader will see that Martin approaches Ruth, her family and their lifestyle much the same way London, through Nietzsche's theory approaches the idea of religion.

Martin, in the story gives up everything to pursue his dream as a writer as did London in the life he carved out for himself. The success comes with a price both in the book and in real life. There was even speculation that London killed himself. This theory believes that his Martin Eden was his swan song of sorts because it gave warning that he was going to do himself in. While this theory has been largely laid to rest it does increase the similarities between the fictional and the real life character.

Jack London's Life http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/London/jackbio.html

Willy suffers from the consequences of the internal and external conflicts in his life. One of the antagonists in this story is the false promise of the American Dream, not another person per se. Willy is unable to become rich and show his family his own worth through material possessions, despite his hard work and perseverance, which is a conflict to him because he believed that would happen. He believes that the company he has been employed by for decades will promote him, but instead he is fired. He has worked hard and struggled to provide for his family, yet his sons reject him. Willy learns that the truths he has believed in life are actually false promises. These conflicts are all caused by the antagonist of the play, and losing his job and income and therefore perceiving himself to have let everyone, including himself, down are his external conflicts.…

Tis Pity She's a hore

Genre: hat is the Genre of the Play? How did it exhibit the characteristics of a tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, or melodrama?

Tis Pity She's a hore is an example of a tragedy play. It is clear that it is a tragedy because the two main characters Giovanni and Anabella have an incestuous sexual relationship which results in their deaths as well as the deaths of many others.

Plot: How did the plot work? here in the play did the exposition occur? here was the climax? here was the crisis? hat instances of foreshadowing, discovery, and reversal are present? as the plot a significant part of the play? hy?

The plot of the play is that two people, a brother and sister fall in love and have a sexual relationship. She is forced to marry because she is pregnant which is the crisis because she cannot…

Works Cited:

Ford, John. 'Tis Pity She's a Whore. London: Nick Hern, 2003. Print.

" Emecheta uses metaphors, similes and allusions with appropriate timing and tone in this book, and the image of a puppet certainly brings to mind a person being controlled, manipulated, made to comply instantly with any movement of the controlling hand. In this case Ego seems at the end of her rope -- the puppet has fallen nearly to the floor and is dangling helplessly.

The Emecheta images and metaphors are sometimes obvious, as this one is, but always effective. The reader is clearly aware of Ego's initial identity, and Ego's swift feet of lightness and intensity running in the misty darkness, presents a fluid sensation -- a hoped for escape. She is running towards a new identity and when she hits the gravel road the color is of blood and water and she runs like this will be her duty forever, like someone is following her. The image of…

Works Cited

Derrickson, Teresa. "Class, Culture, and the Colonial Context: the Status of Women in Buchi Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood. International Fiction Review 29.12 (2002):

40-51.

Emecheta, Buchi. The Joys of Motherhood. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1994.

Fishburn, Katherine. Reading Buchi Emecheta: Cross-Cultural Conversations. Santa Barbara,

Huckleberry Finn's violent, alcoholic father, after Finn escapes from the Widow, is an extremely negative paternal force of socialization. Finn, rather than be integrated into society like Emma, must leave society and find his own values, rather than the hypocritical values imposed upon him by others. The most fundamental of these values are his friendship with Jim, an escaped Black slave, who is his truest friend in the novel. Jim follows Huckleberry Finn everywhere, and Finn saves his life on several occasions by lying. Huck feels guilty because he has been taught this is 'stealing' another person's property, because Jim is 'owned' but Huck's natural humanity tells him otherwise. Unlike Emma's natural, ungoverned impulses, which led her to play with the fates of others, Huck's natural inclinations are the best part of his character, unlike his friend Tom Sawyer who is more socialized in morals and books (the sort of…

Madam Bovary & Middlemarch

Emma and Dorothea

Considering the degree of bitter social commentary involved in the two novels in question, it seems obvious that both authors used female protagonists because the issues of the respective societies addressed would be most clearly seen from the female prospective. At the time these works were written, they would have been rejected out of hand if male protagonists had behaved as these two women did.

Even in today's world, anybody acting like Emma, with her perceptions that happiness was something others owed her and were supposed to create for her, would be considered a really selfish self-centered flake. It is not pleasant to contemplate but it is true that even today these behaviors would be more accepted in women then in men and, therefore, in a female protagonist.

In the day of Emma Bovary and Dorothea Casaubon, "gentlewomen" were expected to be ornaments.…

"

This essay is well-written and well-constructed. The writer refers to the primary source material liberally and provides in-text citations as well as a bibliography. However, the writer could use active voice more often. For example, the sentence "The use of different point-of-view for the narration of the story has great influence on how the elements of characterization and setting are presented" could be rewritten and presented in active voice: "...great influence on how the authors present elements of characterization and setting." The sentence that follows is also slightly clumsy and would be improved through using more parallel verb forms. It reads: "The first person narrative can use more direct characterization to establish the people in the story while the objective point-of-view relies on indirect interpretation." It could be changed to read: "The first person narrative uses direct characterization to establish the people in the story, while the objective point-of-view…

The narrator in "Reunion" has an optimistic understanding of life and feels that it would be impossible for him and his father not to have a good time going out. Even with the fact that he is aware of his father's drinking problem, he feels that their relationship is stronger than his father's need for alcohol and that they are probable to overcome their issues as a result of communicating. Alcohol is actually one of the reasons for which Charlie opens his eyes and sees the horrible truth regarding his father. It is then when he realizes that his father cannot get rid of his alcohol problem and that it would be best for him to avoid ever seeing him again.

Charlie virtually experiences rebirth as he sees his father drinking heavily and behaving aggressively. He realizes that this is who his father is and that this person is never…

Works cited:

Carver, Raymond, "The Cathedral"

Cheever, John, "Reunion"

Winter, Michael, "Archibald the Arctic"

Most viewers are likely to feel that it is important for them to adopt defensive personalities in order to avoid being drawn in a group that seems to act in disagreement with society's values. While this is not necessarily bad, the sincerity in these films induces intense feelings in viewers, making individuals consider that the whole world is damaged and that all that one can do is to try and cope with the miserable conditions that people sometimes come across. Whip and Charlie both initially seem determined to let go and stop fighting for their personal well-being. Similarly, Kate has a tendency to party regardless of the effects that her attitude has on herself and on people around her. This makes it possible for viewers to understand that it is not at all easy to overcome a serious trauma and that individuals are even likely to suffer throughout their lives…

Dir. James Ponsoldt. Smashed. (Sony Pictures Classics, 2012)

Dir. Robert Zemeckis. Flight. (Paramount Pictures, 2012)

Dir. Stephen Chbosky. The Perks of Being a Wallflower. (Summit Entertainment, 2012)

Dracula

The novel "Dracula" was written by Irish author Bram Stoker in 1897. Set in nineteenth-century Victorian England and other countries of the same time, this novel is told in an epistolary format through a collection of letters, diary entries etc. The main characters include Count Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Dr. Van Helsing. Count Dracula is the antagonist character of the novel, and is a vampire. The group of men and women led by Dr. Van Helsing are the main protagonist characters. The novel talks about Count Dracula's endeavor to relocate from Transylvania to England, and his demise. The story begins with an English lawyer, Jonathan Harker, visiting Dracula's castle to assist him with some real estate issues. During his stay in the castle, Harker discovers that the Count is a vampire and barely escapes with his life. Then the narrative turns into…

References:

Parsons, G. (1989). Religion in victorian britain. (Vol. 4)

Stoker, B. (1897). Dracula. United Kingdom: Archibald Constable and Company.

Wood, P. (2004). Science and dissent in England, 1688-1945 (science, technology and culture,

Journey motif is pervasive in global literature, attributed to the existence of collective symbols common to all human societies as archetypes (Zhang, 2008). Both Homer's Iliad and Shakespeare's Henry V incorporate the journey motif as a literary technique. This serves to elevate the status of the protagonist to the heroic level, as the character struggles to meet challenges and overcome obstacles without the familiar trappings of home, family, and social status. War is one of the reasons that heroes undertake journeys, and war indeed figures prominently in both the Iliad and Henry V, driving the plot and transforming their respective protagonists. Journeying occurs on actual and symbolic levels in both these texts. In Homer's Iliad, Achilles undergoes several changes of heart during the war. His journey is introspective, taking him from a point of habitual action through a stage of vengefulness, and finally, onward to spiritual, social, psychological, and political…

References

Alston, A. (2008). Henry V: The hero king? Retrieved online: http://www.shakespeare-revue.com/PDFs/Alston-HenryV.pdf

Homer. (800 BCE). The Iliad.

Shakespeare, W. Henry V. Retrieved online: http://www.opensourceshakespeare.org/views/plays/play_view.php?WorkID=henry5&Scope=entire&pleasewait=1&msg=pl#a1,s1

Zhang, K. (2008). Archetype and allegory in Journey to the West. Retrieved online:  http://dspace.library.uvic.ca:8080/bitstream/handle/1828/1823/Archetype_and_Allegory_in_Journey6.pdf?sequence=1

Earl of Rochester / Aphra Behn

Masks and Masculinities:

Gender and Performance in the Earl of Rochester's "Imperfect Enjoyment"

and Aphra Behn's "The Disappointment"

Literature of the English Restoration offers the example of a number of writers who wrote for a courtly audience: literary production, particularly in learned imitation of classical models, was part of the court culture of King Charles II. The fact of a shared model explains the remarkable similarities between "The Imperfect Enjoyment" by the Earl of Rochester and "The Disappointment" by Aphra Behn -- remarkable only because readers are surprised to read one poem about male sexual impotence from the late seventeenth century, let alone two examples of this genre by well-known courtly writers. In fact, Richard Quaintance presents ten more examples by lesser-known poets as he defines the literary sub-genre of the neo-Classical "imperfect enjoyment poem," written in imitation of Roman poems on the same…

Works Cited

Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1990. Print.

Empson, Sir William. "Rochester." Argufying: Essays on Literature and Culture. Ed. John Haffenden. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1988. 270-7. Print.

Farley-Hills, David. Rochester: The Critical Heritage. London: Taylor and Francis, 2005. Print.

Hughes, Derek. "Aphra Behn and the Restoration Theatre." The Cambridge Companion to Aphra Behn. Ed. Derek Hughes and Janet Todd. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. 29- 45. Print.

And indeed, this is a man without a country, because he not only doesn't fit in with the white man, he doesn't mesh with the older people within his culture.

The antagonist in this story is the white man's world of greed and "civilization." The values that the white man holds certainly clash with the Indian. The white man's beauty is in palm trees of California (that stand "stiffly" by the roadside while a struggling pine tree on a rocky outcropping is more beautiful), and the white man's beauty is also rows of fruit trees like military men all lined up perfectly. That is a man-made world, made by the antagonist in this story. The antagonist in this story is also the sociology professor "and his professing"; this professor won't have to worry about his student anymore and the student won't have to worry about "some man's opinion of my…

Works Cited

Whitecloud, Tom. Blue Winds Dancing.

hen Edith harton tells us that "it was the background that she [Lily] required," we understand that both Emma Bovary and Lily have a very important thing in common. They are first of all women in the nineteenth century society, fettered by social conventions to fulfill any kind of aspirations or ideals. A woman, as it is clearly stated in both novels, had no other means of being having a place in society than by acquiring respectability and money through a good marriage. To marry was the only vocation of a woman, as harton tells us.

Of course, there interferes a great difference between the two heroines here, because Madame Bovary, as her very title proves it, is already a married woman, while Lily in harton's book is in constant pursue of a redeeming marriage. But, essentially the frustration of the two heroines is the same, as Emma is as…

Works Cited

The American Experience: Andrew Carnegie- The Gilded Age. PBS Online. 1999. 1 Oct. 2006  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/gildedage.html .

Byatt, A.S. Scenes from Provincial Life. The Guardian. July, 27, 2002. Oct.2006  http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2342/is_n1_v30/ai_18631915 .

Cahir, Linda Costanzo Solitude and Society in the Works of Herman Melville and Edith Wharton. New York: Greenwood Press, 1999

Deppman, Jed. "History with style: the impassible writing of Flaubert - Gustave Flaubert." Style. 1996. Oct 2006

Lost illusions, by Honore de Balzac was meaningful to me because I identified with Lucien Chardon. He overcame and humiliation and provided life lessons about the world and human nature. The Red and the Black, by Stendhal touched me through the class struggle of Julien Sorel. He improved society during the Bourbon Restoration. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky influenced me through Raskolinkov. I identified with his conscience, notwithstanding that his applied only retrospectively.

(These were all the progressively shorter working drafts that were too many characters. I'm including them in case you want to make any changes on your end to the shorter version above using anything I had to delete to fit the character maximum.)

1000+ Characters

Lost illusions, by Honore de Balzac was extremely meaningful to me because I identified with Lucien Chardon. A poet full of ambitions, he fought hard to succeed and to overcome the…

Canebrake Night Woman

Sex in the Canebrake and Night Woman

On the surface, "The Canebrake" by Mohammed Mrabet and "Night Woman" by Edwidge Danticat are two completely different stories. The former is about a disgruntled housewife; the latter is about a prostitute. However, there is a fundamental theme that ties these two stories together. That is, each story explores how female sexuality can be exploited to gain power and control. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss how the female protagonist in both stories use sex to get what they want.

In "The Canebrake," Kacem's wife is not very pleased with her husband. He drinks too much and he shows little interest in her. Moreover, he won't even let her leave the house. She is a prisoner of sorts, "No matter how much she entreated him and argued with him, he would not even let her go to…

Lust" to "A&P," "Girl" and "A Sorrowful Woman" both similarities and differences can be seen, with these noticeable in relation to the themes present, the protagonist character of each, the perspective and the way the story is told.

The main obvious difference between "Lust" and "A&P" is the nature of the protagonist. In "Lust" we have the female and in "A&P" the male. The character in "Lust" takes the place of the girl in the supermarket which Sammy lusts after. Sammy and the girl in "Lust" are looking at the situation from opposite angles. The similarity between the works is that they both focus on the same situation, that of finding one's place in society and especially finding one's place as a man or woman. In "Lust" the character remains almost unaware of the man's viewpoint, she simply reacts, giving them what they want as it is easier than refusing.…

332-333, 336-337). The fallen angels' response to Satan's call is the final confirmation of his character, because it demonstrates how he is able to maintain the respect and interest of his followers even though it appears as if they have been stripped of everything. In this sense, Satan is a kind of idealized revolutionary leader, outmatched by the "Almighty" but unwilling to give up, all the while maintaining the respect and loyalty of his followers.

In Paradise Lost, it seems almost inevitable that Milton, whether intentionally or not, was on the Devil's side, even if the narrator of the poem was explicitly not. This is evidenced by the discrepancies between the narrator's account of Satan's character and what is revealed in Book I, when Satan first interacts with the other fallen angels. here the narrator suggests that Satan's actions were born out of vanity and greed, Satan argues otherwise, claiming…

Works Cited

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Boston: Woolsworth, Ainsworth, & Co., 1870.

Biff deliberately gives up all chances of graduating from high school, and leaves his college dreams behind.

For a long time, Biff feels some anxiety about his chosen lifestyle out est. He enjoys the freedom of his rootless life, but feels somewhat guilty that he has given up so much, after so much was expected of the early promise he showed. His cousin Bernard, less athletic but more studious, has distinguished himself as a lawyer. His Uncle Ben, illy's idol, found diamonds while wandering in the wilderness, while Biff has only, in his view, wasted his time doing very little, and making very little money.

hen he comes back to see his parents, Biff contemplates going into business with his unethical brother Happy, who is very much like a younger version of illy. But after a certain point, Biff realizes that this would simply be, in his words, "trying to…

Works Cited

Miller, Arthur. "Death of a Salesman." The Portable Arthur Miller. New York, Penguin, 1995.

Edgar Allen Poes story "The Cask Amontillado" You write, setting, theme story, point veiw, plt, language signifagace story. THE CASK OF AMONTILLADO Edgar Allan Poe (1846) THE thousand injuries Fortunato I borne I, ventured insult I vowed revenge.

Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" - analysis

Edgar Allen Poe's 1846 short story "The Cask of Amontillado" puts across an account involving a vindictive character who tries to reinforce his self-esteem by luring the person he considers his enemy into a situation that would do him justice. It is difficult to determine whether the aggressor actually has the reasons to punish his enemy or if he is simply insane and uses an unspecified event as a motive to go through with committing his crime. However, his insanity is controversial when considering the complex nature of the plot and the obvious feeling of satisfaction that the protagonist experiences as he acknowledges that his…

Blood by Suzan-Lori Sparks expands on the main theme of society's unfair disregard for its people of low condition in general, for women, and for adulterers. Hester La Negrita, the protagonist, is an African-American woman who struggles to survive in poverty along with her five base-born children. The family's outcast status is portrayed as a direct inducer and accelerator of emotional suffering, poverty, lack of education, and sexual exploitation.

(A) From a structural perspective, In the Blood is constructed in two acts and nine scenes, employing a linear plotline (ush, 2005). In this sense, the play debuts with the equilibrium of Hester striving to provide for her children in meager conditions, the inciting incident represented by the suggestion to seek help from the available former lovers and fathers of her children, the major dramatic question of whether or not she will attain it, the developing action as Hester approaches everend…

References

Bailin, D. (2006). "Our Kind: Albee's Animals in Seascape and the Goat Or, Who Is Sylvia?." The Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Vol. 18, No. 1.

Putnam, R.D. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Rush, D. (2005). A Student Guide to Play Analysis. Carbondale, Illinois: Southern Illinois Printing Press.

Santa Anna Dictatorship

In his self-described revisionist biography Santa Anna of Mexico (2007), Will Fowler has courageously taken up the defense of the Mexico caudillo, fully aware that he is all but universally reviled in the historiography of the United States and Mexico. From the beginning, he made his intention clear to vindicate the reputation of a dictator whose "vilification has been so thorough and effective that the process of deconstructing the numerous lies that have been told and retold" is almost impossible.[footnoteRef:1] Timothy J. Henderson asserted that he had a great talent for exploiting and manipulating political divisions but none for governing a country. In U.S. history and popular culture, he has always been portrayed as a corrupt megalomaniac, the 'Napoleon of the West', responsible for the massacres at the Alamo and Goliad. As John Chasteen and James Wood put it, even his autobiography was an "extraordinary work of…

Bibliography

"The Alamo" in William Dirk Raat (ed). Mexico from Independence to Revolution, 1810-1910. University of Nebraska Press, 1982, pp. 84-90.

Borneman, Walter R. Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America. NY: Random House, 2009.

Eisenhower, John S.D. So Far from God: The U.S. War with Mexico, 1846-1848. NY: Random House, 2000.

Fehrenbach Timothy R. Fire and Blood. De Capo Press, 1995.

Raymond Carver, "Cathedral"

Raymond Carver's short story "Cathedral" is narrated in the first person by the unnamed protagonist, and tells a deceptively simple story: the narrator's wife (also unnamed) has invited her former employer Robert, an older blind man recently widowed, to come for dinner and stay the night. The husband is resistant to the social occasion, but goes through with it -- although his narration makes us privy to his thoughts (which are occasionally marked by a low-level hostility) or else offers wry and laconic descriptions of his own statements and behavior. Eventually after consuming several scotches and some "dope you can reason with," the wife falls asleep on the sofa leaving the protagonist in conversation with the blind Robert, eventually leading to the muted but bittersweet conclusion of the story. Yet Carver carefully employs the first-person perspective of the narrator to demonstrate -- almost beyond his own self-awareness…

He kills his father as he flees his home and marries his mother after solving the riddle of the Sphinx. His end is inevitable, but Sophocles clearly shows the role negative character traits play in Oedipus' tragedy, while Hamlet's supposedly negative traits of doubt are not necessarily evil.

Thus Hamlet could be classified as a kind of nascent anti-hero, a man who mourns "the time is out of joint/oh cursed spite/that ever I was born to put it right," and never succeeds in 'putting it right' because society offers him only one, ineffective mechanism for pursuing a brutal type of justice (1.5). The failure of heroism to 'put things right' is manifested starkly in Waiting for Godot, where the heroes famously wait for the final 'solution' of the arrival of the presumably heroic Godot, who never comes. These characters are not so much heroes or even anti-heroes -- rather they…

If we consider the fact that Juno's goal, although not known to her at this point, is to end up in the end with Bleeker, this midpoint makes the character seem farthest from reaching her goal.

I think that this midpoint divides the first and second act because of the relationship between Juno and Bleeker. As mentioned, at this point, their relationship seems to no longer have any potential future, while the first act has always left this possibility in the open, as we could still see them interacting in the same manner and getting along.

5. The break-up in the adoptive couple is also essential and we can probably identify this as a second plot point, despite the fact that the previously presented midpoint is also important as a plot point (I have selected this, however, as the plot point because it seems to have more influence on the…

"She relaxed limply in the seat. "Oh, no. No. I don't want to go. I'm sure I don't." Her face was turned away from him. "It will be enough if we can have wine. It will be plenty." She turned up her coat collar so he could not see that she was crying weakly -- like an old woman" (Steinbeck).

There are a number of fairly eminent points to be made about this quotation -- the first of which is that Allen's husband has taken her away from her source of power -- her garden. Away from that source, she is described by imagery that is rather enervating and in opposition to the vivacity she previously personified. The imagery of her sitting "limply" and weeping "weakly" is strongly contrasted with the images of her cutting through plants and powerfully gripping handfuls of earth -- which symbolizes the source of her…

Works Cited

Budnichuk, Monica. "The Chrysanthemums: Exposing Sexual Tension Through Setting And Character." Universal Journal. No date. Web.  http://ayjw.org/print_articles.php?id=647033 

Hemingway, Ernest. "Hills Like White Elephants." Men Without Women. New York: Scribner's Sons, 1927. Online reprint. Scribd.com, 2011. Web.

Hashmi, Nilofer. "Hills Like White Elephants": The Jilting of Jig." The Hemingway Review. (2003): 72-83. Print.

Hunt, D. "Steinbeck's Allegory of the Cave: Deconstructing Elisa Allen in "The Chrysanthemums." Universal Journal. No date. Web.  http://www.ayjw.org/articles.php?id=582962

Short story -- A brief story where the plot drives the narrative, substantially shorter than a novel. Example: "Hills like White Elephants," by Ernest Hemingway.

Allusion -- A casual reference in one literary work to a person, place, event, or another piece of literature, often without explicit identification. It is used to establish a tone, create an indirect association, create contrast, make an unusual juxtaposition, or bring the reader into a world of references outside the limitations of the story itself. Example: "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot alludes to "Paradise Lost" by John Milton.

epetition -- The repeating of a word or phrase or rhythm within a piece of literature to add emphasis. Example: The story of Agamemnon in The Odyssey by Homer.

Blank verse -- Unrhymed lines of ten syllables each with the even-numbered syllables bearing the accents, most closing resembling the natural rhythms of English speech. Example: "The…

References:

Wheeler, Dr. L. Kip. "Literary Terms and Definitions." Web.

"Word List of Literary and Grammar Terms." Web.

Traits That Define a Leader

Stunning: Strength in Patchett's Works

Upon initial examination, the worlds and lives inhabited by Roxanne Coss, a glamorous opera singer who finds herself trapped by terrorists in Latin America for month on end in Bel Canto, and by Rose, who abruptly moves to a remote location in Kentucky to give birth to a daughter at a home for unwed mothers in The Patron Saint of Liars, appear to be decidedly different. However, due in no small part to the fact that each of these works of literature is authored by Ann Patchett, there is an abundance of similarities between the constitution and the manifestation of fortitude that both of these women summon in situations that unquestioningly call for their respective assertion. The common theme in each book is that the female protagonist in both tales draws upon reserves of strength to allow her to surmount…

Soap Opera" by David Ives

• the Theme -- When a man can't find love from real women, he turns to his idealized woman -- a washing machine, who in his mind is perfect.

• The Protagonist -- Manny, Repairman with a washing-machine fetish who must maintain the order of everythiing

• The Antagonist -- The Maypole. She taunts him because he's never been able to fix her

• The Dramatic question -- What in the world is this repairman doing in a French restaurant with a washing machine? Which will he choose, Mabel or Maypole?

• The Climax -- True love! Manny chooses Mabel!

• The Conclusion -- Happy ending between Manny and Mabel

• Symbols -- The washing machine -- a stand-in for every woman the repairman has known; something that makes things clean and comforting (the hankerchief); .

• The Mode of drama -- High romantic comedy…

Her society tells her she needs one, and when Milkman enters her life, she invests her entire personality in him. When he leaves her, Hagar lacks the self she needs to survive. Pathetically, she tries to create a self that Milkman will want by buying makeup and clothes, turning her beautiful African hair a horrible orange (Milkman has been dating light-skinned redheads), and generally abasing herself.

Morrison certainly deviates from a sterotypical feminist perspective when she criticizes Hagar's possessiveness as well as Milkman's cruelty. When Hagar and uth argue over Milkman, Pilate points out that a man is not a house to be owned. Finally, when Hagar is trying to kill Milkman (not able to possess him, she does not know what else to do), Guitar tells her how wrong she is to base her value on the possession of a man. How can Milkman love her if she is…

References

Bakerman, Jane. Failures of Love: Female Initiation in the Novels of Toni Morrison, American Literature 52 ( January 1981), 541.

Cowart, David. Faulkner and Joyce in Morrison's Song of Solomon. American Literature 62.1 (1990): 87-100.

Duvall, John N. Doe. Hunting and Masculinity: Song of Solomon and Go Down, Moses. Arizona Quarterly 47.1 (1991): 95-115.

Marilyn, Atlas. A Woman Both Shiny and Brown: Feminine Strength in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. Society for the Study of Midwestern Literature Newsletter 9 (Fall 1979), 1-13.