Compare and Contrast: Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne Edgar Allen Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne were two phenomenal authors of the Dark Romanticism period. These American authors were two of the first writers to delve into the human mind and create psychological literature. Dark Romanticism examines the conflict between good and evil, the psychological effects of guilt and sin, and the human minds madness and derangement. Poe and Hawthorne both successfully captured the dark romanticism elements, yet they each approach these dismal aspects differently. These two authors share qualities in their writing, but they were extremely different people.
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s sonnet sequence Sonnets from the Portugeuse, explores the experence of idealised love in the patriarchal confines of the Victorian era, juxtaposed against F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, which comments on the unatanability of idealised love due to the corruption of the American dream. Through an exploration of love, both composers subvert societies preconcieved attitutdes to love through the reccurring motif of ‘Plato’s ladder of love’. Barrett-Browning’s poems highlight the realities of a spiritual, connected love, contrasting to Fitzgeralds commentary on the illusionary goals of ‘true’ platonic love in the post WWI hedonistic, materialistic society. Barrett-Browning conveys the Romantic ideals of platonic love, against the prudish rationalism of the Victorian era. The Petrarchan sonnet form has an inbuilt dialectic structure, enabling her to have a progressive narrative, which follows the path of the Platonic system.
Popular fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast” explores different gender roles in its various versions. A gender role is a set of social and behavioral norms that are generally considered appropriate for either a man or a woman in a social or interpersonal relationship. Maria Tartar, Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University argues that this well-known tale has been written primarily to state that it is indeed ‘Beauty’ who reforms the ‘Beast’ while British novelist Marina Warner argues against this claim and states that it is ‘Beast’ who brings out the wild side in ‘Beauty’. Contrary to the conventional claim of the man saving the woman or specifically the damsel in distress, much like Tartar, I too believe that this fairy tale has the stereotype reversed where the woman saves the man by civilizing him. Analyzing the gender roles of ‘Beauty’ and ‘Beast’ in Madame de Beaumont’s fairytale entitled “Beauty and the Beast” illustrates why I view women as the civilizing agent in their relationship with men.
Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein,' an epistolary Romantic novel inspired by elements of the Promethean myth, and Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner,' a science fiction film known for its promotion of film/tech noir elements are two texts which have come to challenge the dominant paradigms of their time. Through the study of these texts, the reflection
Gothic literature does demonstrate the consequences of a disruption in the natural order, gothic literature is a representation of society in its time, each novel raises issues and their consequences in order to advise and educate its readers against the actions the protagonists take. In Samuel Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the ancient mariner’ the mariner’s actions against nature, with religion/nature being the natural order in society as religion centres itself around the confession of sins done by men or women, the mariner is seen to be punished for his actions, deemed wrong in its time.. "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" helps implement all this cycle with the murder of the albatross and how he must pay for his actions. In Coleridge’s poem, the mariner’s crime against nature: the shooting of the albatross disrupts the natural order the consequence of this action is nature begins to start the punishment the mariner for his crimes with, "Water, water, everywhere nor any drop to drink." He is punished harshly for killing the symbol of nature that everyone reveres. He is beaten down by the sun with its rays and is taunted by the endless sight of water that he cannot drink.
How has your understanding of the contextual values portrayed in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf been shaped by your study of A Room of One’s Own? Edward Albee’s 1962 dramatic play, ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’, written at a time of change after World War II, addresses the fragmentation of the human condition, the artifice of the American Dream and the destructive nature of illusions. Meanwhile, Virginia Woolf’s polemic on women and fiction in 1928, ‘A Room of One’s Own’, examines the paradigms of gender inequality and attitudes towards women’s independence in the early 20th century, and truth and illusion. Although written in different contexts, both authors reflect similar values of their time. Woolf endeavours to prove that for women, financial and intellectual freedom is a necessity to attaining happiness.
I will be discussing the arguments of two a Philosopher who wrote in the midst of the sexual liberation. Thomas Nagel has closely related arguments with some points of agreement and some in contention. Thomas Nagel establishes the “sex as communication” metaphor when he presents his own argument for what constitutes sexual perversion. Before he makes his case he offers what he calls the “skeptical argument”. This argument contends that sex is an appetite like any other, with a number of ways of being sated.
The Puritans and Sex The Puritans and Sex provides an insight on the misunderstood life of the Puritans and their lust for sex. Written by Edmund S. Morgan, the article goes in-depth on how the Puritans could not contain their sexual desires and the ways they tried to stop themselves from divulging deeper into the sinfulness pleasures they were taking part in. The Puritans and Sex gives an interesting account on an unknown side of the Puritans, the article was a good selection based on the new information provided about a group largely regarded as to being the opposite of fun. The Puritans did abstain from many normal pleasures but something they could not hold back is their desire for sex. This caused the Puritans to encourage sex as long as it was between a man and his wife and that it does not interfere with religion.
The Portrayal of Homosexuality in Raymond Chandler’s: The Big Sleep Raymond Chandler is the epitome of what it means to be a detective fiction writer, particularly in his novel The Big Sleep. Speir states that Marlowe is a microcosm of both Chandler’s concern for character and his concern for language by which that character is expressed (viii). Although Marlowe’s voice is the constant ground of Chandler’s stories, he uses other characters throughout the novel in a way that holds the reader’s attention. There are numerous aspects of this novel that could be the main focus. The main issue in this novel is the issue of homosexuality.
Up until the late sixties, homosexuality was perceived as a pathological disease. Influenced by the sexual liberation movement, homosexuality was finally reexamined by notable scientists like Alfred Kinsey and Evelyn Hooker. They scientifically challenged and successfully appealed to the American Psychological Association and American Association of Psychiatrists to dismiss homosexuality as a pathological disease. The recognition of homosexuality merely as a sexual preference justified the legalization of homosexuality in the Criminal Law Amendment Act, thus granting homosexuals rights to publicly form gay communities. This helped lay the groundwork for the emergence of gay churches.