Othello

The first scene of Othello’s fifth act, unlike those before it, is dominated by physical violence, with Iago at the centre playing the “puppet master”. This scene reminds the audience of the capabilities Iago possesses in controlling the more...

The Overcoat

In his short tale “The Overcoat,” Nikolai Gogol has unfolded tragedies as well as satirical jokes by imagining a wide range of roles an overcoat can fulfill within an oppressive, bureaucratic, and heavily materialistic society. Without loss of...

On the Road

In Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, the introduction of Dean Moriarty and the paradoxical themes of the Eastern and Western “road” to the character Sal Paradise incur dissension in Sal’s evolution. Sal ultimately chooses to return to the East and its...

Blindness

Jose Saramago’s Blindness depicts a world suddenly stricken by a blindness epidemic. As an inexplicable wave of blindness spreads, society fragments and people freely express an “animalistic” form of human nature in face of the increased pressure...

Hamlet

Why has Hamlet captivated actors, critics and audiences for centuries? What makes Hamlet himself so mysterious? Unlike most characters, who are defined by what can be seen on stage, Hamlet appears to be “constructed around an unseen or secret...

Keats' Poems and Letters

The primary source of feeling comes from within the Self. At least, this is what Lord Byron's Manfred and "Lara: Canto the First" and Keats' "Four Seasons Fill the Measure of the Year", tell us. The implications of this are that once the internal...