Brahm Stoker’s “Dracula” highlights concerns prevalent within the Victorian era, shown through characters, symbols and themes throughout the novel. Prior to this, Samuel Taylor Coleridge worked within the Romantic era absorbing a multitude of radical political and theological ideas, ideas which often underpinned his works. Coleridge’s “Christabel” confronts concerns surrounding universal human characteristics, particularly those most prominent within his era, such as female purity and innocence. In contrast to these more traditional beliefs, “Blood; The Last Vampire” articulates anxieties surrounding the breakdown of a society and the repercussions of this in relation to a younger, more contemporary society. The “dark side’ within these texts are often projected through a singular symbol, character or theme that is unaccepted or feared by its surrounding society.
However, I felt that it was irrelevant when the author said, “Although many female writers claim to be the ‘Queen of Crime Fiction”…” I believe this phrase could be eliminated. To simply state, “As Queen of Crime Fiction, it is Agatha Christie whom all others are measured”, the introduction would have been more powerful. The thesis was stated in the last line of the introduction; “Even many years after her death, readers appreciate Agatha Christie’s novels because of her strong characters, her interesting settings, and her strong morality”. It was a good framework for the entire essay. The most important ideas in the essay were her use of strong characters, interesting settings, and strong morality.
Holder's work tends to be organic rather than angular; and she enlivens the two-dimensionality of her compositions with modeled elements. Holder had several series; What’s Black and White and Red All over, Warrior Women Wizards: Mystical Magical Mysteries, Behind Each Window, and Let the Future Reveal. In each of the series the themes seem to be about past history of racism, about the elastic nature of women, and about her history of her Brooklyn neighborhood from which she remembers. All of Holders pieces are all special to me because they all tell a different story, but there is one that really grasps my attention. No Toy Guns, 1998 from “What’s Black and White and Red All over”; a bi-racial image showing police brutality, childhood and ethnic identity.
Rosalind Wiseman Queen Bees and Wannabes Non-fiction teen parenting novel Crown Publishers 2002 I originally saw my teacher reading this book and she recommended it to me and all teenage girls to better identify themselves with their parents and to better accept and understand the young women them. I am not an avid reader but I usually prefer fiction books with intense personal story lines. I enjoy fiction that makes you believe it is real. These are books such as gossip girl or little women. The Main character in this book is truly the author; she spent years researching for and writing this book.
How does Bronte use the fire and ice motif to present and explore the emotions of key characters? “Jane Eyre” is an English novel and was published in 1847. The novel was titled ‘Jane Eyre’; it is an autobiography under the name of “Currer Bell”. Many people consider the novel to be ahead of its time because of the feminist views that Bronte presents and the way Jane’s character is presented as a very passionate young girl who does not conform to the expectations of society in that era. The novel includes many motifs from the gothic genre and cleverly combines this with the romantic themes and plot to produce a novel very different to others when it was first published.
Why did Susan Hill choose to pick El Marsh House as the main scene and how did she use pathetic fallacy to make the writing effective? In my personal opinion I believe that Susan Hill used El Marsh House as the main scene in the book because she can make it sound like a mystery. She can twist a house that she maybe has seen in her life a turned it to make a mysterious haunted house. Later within the book it starts to get into great detail on describing what Arthur Kipps had witnesses, felt and heard. “Whatever was about, whoever I had seen, and heard rocking, and who had passed me by just now, whoever had opened the locked door was not ‘real’.
Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery Shirley Jackson’s writing style brings fear upon her readers by mixing real life with fantasy. Jackson’s split lifestyle (mother and writer) supplies the basis for her fiction and horror stories. My main point is that Shirley Jackson uses her popular horror stories, specifically “The Lottery” to dramatize the everyday hypocrisy in a way to capture the attention of society. This is explained in the story “The Lottery”, the alliteration and theme of “The Lottery”, Shirley Jackson’s life, and the parallelism between Jackson and a character from “The Lottery” (SparkNotes). Initially, in “The Lottery” it is their tradition for the villagers of a small town to gather together for the town lottery where every family draws a slip of paper from a black box.
Evelyn Valle English 213, American Lit HW: Essay March 19, 2014 “’But above all,’ she wrote, ‘night and day, I thank the good God for having so arranged our lives that our dear Armand will never know that his mother, who adores him, belongs to the race that is cursed with the brand of slavery.” --Désirée’s Baby; Kate Chopin An Expected Surprise While reading many short stories, the audience often encounters twists in the story that seem to be surprising. However, this is not true for all stories as many authors foreshadow what is to come while using small details. This is true for Kate Chopin’s short story “Désirée’s Baby” where she drops hints throughout the story such that the reader is not surprised by the ending. In Kate Chopin’s
Gothic Elements in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde After reading the whole gothic literatures in this semester, I find The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gives me the most impression. Since I was young, the only kinds of book that can make me feel interested in are gothic type of fiction. Gothic writing tends to be very dark, focus on the evil side of human nature, have supernatural and unexplained elements to it; for example, the mysterious setting and the suspicious events. These elements make me can’t help myself but be immersed in the book. After reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I found three elements that impressed me the most: the atmosphere of mystery and horror, the unbelievable event of doubling in that century, and the disappearance of hope.
Both books have similar writing style as gloomy, but foreshadowing and dystopia bring about the effectiveness of gothic literature in both books. Firstly, the story’s title “The Fall of the House of Usher” has a symbolic meaning to itself. “The House of Usher” refers not only to the house, but to the family as well, the Usher bloodline. The title refers not only to the literal fall of the physical house, but the symbolic fall of the Usher family. There are many events which lead to the true meaning of the title, the author uses foreshadowing to enlighten the meaning.