To what extent is Dickens representation of the messianic figure reflective of his 19th Century context? Parallels can be drawn between the Christian messiah Jesus Christ and a handful of characters from Charles Dickens literary classic A Tale of Two Cities. The messianic characteristics represented by the various characters in Dickens novel often reflect his 19th Century context as he draws on similarities of the political, economic and social distress between his era and the French Revolution. The lovely persona Lucie Manette stands out to us as something too good to be true. She is embodied with Christ-like qualities as she is depicted as being “the golden thread” to her father’s situation as she “had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind”.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel and an allegory written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hawthorne was born in 1804, almost two centuries after the time period in which The Scarlet Letter is set. The setting for the novel is in Puritan America in the early seventeenth century. Hawthorne was a serious writer who often wrote about moral values and whose writings stood in stark contrast with the transcendentalist writings of the early to mid nineteenth century. Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter to send a message about the hypocrisy of the church to the people of his time.
Bunyan creates an allegory of this paradigm shift critiquing the 17th century courts salacious attitudes as well as justifying Oliver Cromwell’s puritanic restoration period. Written more than 400 years after Bunyan’s time the powerful warnings against the dangers of totalitarian society within Orwell’s 1984 were extremely prevalent within its contextual period. 1984 a novel illustrating a great imbalance of power between the individual and the totalitarian regime is a timeless dystopian text so removed from society and hyper real that it is labelled a canon of modern times and shares countless attributes with Pilgrims Progress. The prose epic of English puritanism; Pilgrim’s Progress embodies the spirit of religion agreeing with the strict moral code of the time. Bunyan’s Pilgrims draws heavy influence on the ideologies of Martin Luther and John Calvan.
Acharjee1 T. Acharjee English 120 4 June 2012 Eden of the Present World Rappaccini's Daughter written in nineteenth century is Nathaniel Hawthorne's interpretation of the Biblical tale of the Garden of Eden. The connection between the two accounts lies in Hawthorne's masterful use of symbolism, diction, and theme. While retelling the original story, he injects malice, rivalry, and corruption to destroy our peaceful image of the Garden of Eden. However, the author of the story retains various themes, establishing a concrete connection between his story and the original. The story can be viewed as a criticism of the sciences and the rational, which Romantics denounce in favor of the emotional and irrational.
Great Neck South High School 2010 Great Expectations Essay Based on the novel by Charles Dickens Jacob Roth Period 4, Mr. Amelio Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations, is a classic literary criticism of the Victorian era. Dickens, a superb writer, had become disillusioned with the materialism and crass vanity he perceived his country’s culture to have become obsessed over. In writing Great Expectations, Dickens sought to provide an insight into his views concerning the Victorian era and the dissonance between what was promoted as being important and what actually was important for fulfillment in one’s life. Repeatedly throughout the novel, there are clear examples of Dickens attempting to juxtapose the hollow insecurity of wealth with the simple, dignified fulfillment of lower class living. The social interactions of the multitude of characters in the novel are greatly indicative of how Dickens means to portray his ideas of the different social classes.
For example: ‘If I should die, think only this of me: (A) That there's some corner of a foreign field (B) That is forever England. There shall be (A) In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;’ (B) It has two quatrains and a sestet, such as ABAB CDCD EFG EFG. The first eight lines of this poem follows an Elizabeth sonnet rhyme scheme (ABAB CDCD) and the next six lines follows Petrarchan rhyme scheme (EFG EFG). The Soldier is written as a lyric poetry, which the poet uses to express his emotions and thoughts toward patriotism for England. On the contrary, McGough poem has a different viewpoint about war from Brooke’s poem.
The World is too Much with Us William Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. – Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn. SUMMARY: The speaker complains that "the world" is too overwhelming for us to appreciate it.
The project analyses eight stories from Unaccustomed Earth, including the title story Unaccustomed Earth, Hell-Heaven, Only Goodness, A Choice of Accommodation, Nobody’s Business along with final three stories, grouped together as Hema and Kaushik which are Once in a Lifetime, Year’s End, Going Ashore . The eight stories in this splendid volume expand upon Lahiri’s epigraph, a metaphysical passage from The Custom-House, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, which suggests that transplanting people into new soil makes them harder and more flourishing. Human fortunes may be improved, Hawthorne argues, if men and women “strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.” It’s an apt, rich metaphor for the transformations Lahiri oversees in the pages, in which two generations of Bengali immigrants to America — the newcomers and their hyphenated children — struggle to build normal, secure lives. As her characters mature in their new environments, they carry with them the potential for a sudden change in them. Lahiri shows that people may fall at any time by swift grabs of chance, wherever they happen to live.
"The Shield of Achilles" Date: 1955 Author: W. H. Auden From: The Facts On File Companion to American Poetry, vol. 2. W. H. Auden's meditation on the brutal, warlike nature of the modern world, "The Shield of Achilles" is based on Homer's account in the Iliad of the Greek god Hephaestos's construction for Achilles of a suit of armor whose rich design and decorations retell the history of the world. Written in alternating seven-line stanzas ofrime royal (rhymed ABABBCC) and eight-line stanzas recalling the ballad stanza (ABCBDEFE), the poem operates on a series of contrasts. The main character, Thetis, watches Hephaestos's labors, and Auden creates an ironic conflict between her expectations of beautiful scenes and the images Hephaestos renders instead, of imperial Rome and of the modern world's industry and impersonality.
In the sonnet “Leda and the Swan,” William Butler Yeats uses the Italian or Petrarchan sonnet form of an octave consisting of eight lines and a sestet of six lines in iambic pentameter to explore human’s place in the world. Yeats uses a rhyme scheme of ABABCDCDEFGEFG with the octave setting up the situation of Leda’s struggle, and the sestet providing commentary on its effects. In this sonnet, Yeats questions his place in the world as an artist wondering if he has created something eternal. At the beginning of Yeats’ sonnet there exists an air of mystery seeing as the title is the only reference to the identity of the characters. “Leda and the Swan” alludes to the mythological story of Leda, Helen’s mother, who is raped by Zeus in the form of a great swan.