Starbuck: The Tragedy of a “Valour-Ruined Man” Affecting the Whole
One of my favorite things about literature is its ability for us to examine not only society, but ourselves. There is a reason why philosophers and religious leaders have utilized the power of the parable over the many generations. The story is a thing interpretive as well as interpreted....
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Christina Rossetti and Emily Dickinson: The Contrary, Cyclical Prophet-Poetesses
In the late winter of 1964, Joseph Brodsky was put on trial. His crime, according to the Soviet regime, was for being a “freeloader” on the State. Of course, this was the farce for which the regime could, legally, charge him. The fact was he was a poet. And...
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Loneliness and Lingo in Swann’s Way
Undoubtedly, the largest thematic element in Proust’s In Search of Lost Time is the use of memory and involuntary recollection as a means of discovering personal truths in one’s life. It is in the analyses of looking back which revelations of our character, hopes, and desires are made manifest....
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Emma Bovary: The Faux-Tragic Heroine
It is without a doubt that Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary deserves its place among the great works of canonical literature. His use of free indirect discourse was revolutionary at the time of the novel’s publication, and has been an influence over Western writers, and therefore readers, ever since. Added...
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Devaluing Stock: How Mr. Bennet’s Negligence Risked the Value of the Bennet Brand
It’s no secret that until Mr. Darcy had revealed his more sensitive side, Mr. Bennet was Elizabeth’s ideal standard of manhood: an “odd mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice” (3). He was the male image of herself, naturally, since she had been his favorite child and...
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Babies, Bridges and Barricades: Adolescence Denied in Freeman’s Short Story “Old Woman Magoun”
“Old Woman Magoun” is a haunting and puzzling tale. It is not only the witness of Lily’s murder that leaves the reader haunted, but the fact this story spares none of its adult characters. All are pathetic, trapped in the scope of their own vices or malice, or the...
