College

Beowulf

Old English texts were written in a period when the English civilization was in the progress of converting to Christianity from their previous Pagan beliefs. Hence poetry such as Beowulf contains a blend of elements from Christianity and the Pagan...

12th Grade

The Histories

Herodotus’ historical account does contain the kernel of the movie 300 in that it portrays Leonidas as a hero who died in order to save Greece from the Persians. The story has a small garrison with 200 Spartans, 400 Corinthians and 400 Thebans...

12th Grade

Old School

The narrator of Old School, by Tobias Wolff, is a character that can be characterized as morally ambiguous by the reader. This moral ambiguity is accentuated by the complexity of the character, and the fact that the story takes place from his...

12th Grade

Three Day Road

War increases conflicts causing relationships to break revealing one’s true nature. In the historical fictional novel Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden uses the character’s Xavier and Elijah to explain how conflicts lead to devastating effects in war....

12th Grade

The Stone Angel

As one reflects on the past, he or she will be full of pride and guilt. Margaret Laurence uses her protagonist Hagar Shipley from her fictional novel The Stone Angel to explain bitterness, longing, and reverence is the result of contemplating the...

College

Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is a novel laden with comparisons and allusions to religion, folklore, and philosophy. Frankenstein’s creation of a monster showcases a man doing what only deities had done before: giving life to something dead. This...

College

Oliver Twist

While facets of Oliver’s identity are indisputably innate, such as his morality and one dimensional goodness, the majority of his identity and that of those around him are socially constructed and enforced upon them. Oliver’s own face, an...

College

Esther Waters

A focus on the body, especially that of the female body, is integral to Moore's 'Esther Waters' and Hardy's 'Jude the Obscure'. However such an exploration is to extremely different effects. 'Zola repeatedly made use of the metaphor of dissection...

College

Neuromancer

Empathy, happiness, guilt: all are feelings that human beings are capable of that distinguish humans from objects or robots. But in William Gibson's’ “Neuromancer”, his readers are introduced to a futuristic world where the distinction between...

College

Tennyson's Poems

Instability, in its most basic sense, is something not likely to change or fail, this is a feeling or fear explored across various themes in Maud. Across the private and public spheres, instability is recognized in the mind, politics, existence,...

College

The Epic of Gilgamesh

The Epic of Gilgamesh focuses on the inevitability of death and the ways mortals can come to terms with their mortality. In the classical Babylonian epic, He Who Saw the Deep, Gilgamesh is a mighty king who longs to achieve fame and glory,...

College

Rope

Shocking, horrific, and filled with suspense, Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) was a self-proclaimed experiment in filmmaking. Adapted from a Patrick Hamilton play, the film was received with mixed reviews, but the pioneering method of making the film...