counterfeiting, or concealing one's true feelings, is part of this motif. everyone seems to lie; good characters as well as evil ones engage in deceit as they attempt to conceal their feelings: beatrice and benedick mask their feelings for one another with bitter insults; don john spies on claudio and hero; don pedro and his 'crew' deceive benedick and beatrice. who hides and what is hidden? how does deceit function in the world of the play, and how does it help the play comment on life in general? a central motif in the play is trickery or deceit, whether for good or evil purposes.
The title of story plays a big part in deceiving Fortunato. The word cask, which means wine barrel, is derived from the same root word used to form casket, meaning coffin. Therefore when Montresor is speaking of going to the cask he is ironically speaking of Fortunato’s casket (Cummings 2). Along with the title Fortunato’s name is very ironic. In Italian Fortunato means fortunate one, this is ironic because Fortunato is very unfortunate in the story because he is being led to his death and is treated like a fool.
To what extent do you agree that Chaucer presents the Pardoner as sinful as the other characters? Some may assume that the Pardoner was presented by Chaucer as one of the most sinful characters in this Tale. The character of the Pardoner is a self-proclaimed fraud, and slyly tricks people out of their money for a living. At the beginning of The Pardoner’s Prologue, The Pardoner indirectly admits to his crime, “…Ycrammed ful of cloutes an bones- Relikes been they, as wenen they echoon.” This suggests that the relics that The Pardoner sells to people do not belong to a real Saint. Chaucer uses The Pardoner’s character as a voice to reveal how corrupt the Catholic Church was in his time.
In comparison of The Lottery and The Most Dangerous Game both Connell and Jackson convey to the readers that man is inherently evil and that choices made based on societal standards, traditions, and learned behavior may not be the morally correct choice. This confirms the passage of Scripture from Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (KJV) The Most Dangerous Game, by Richard Connell and The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson share a common theme which is showing the darker side of humans, that humans possess evil tendencies and that the morals of people can be corrupted. Connell and Jackson show us that injustice and cruelty in society can be accepted as a normal behavior. “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson has an unknown
There is a saying, “Money is the root of all evil.” This is true if the money is obtained through ill-gotten ways. What happened to Tom Walker is symbolic of what can happen to any human consumed by greed. He or she will lose their soul to the obsession. There were many important themes present in this story that relate to choices we make and the consequences that comes with it. Money and material things do not truly satisfy a person's life or make a person happy.
Fear is an emotion deeply rooted within the human conscience. Based on the circumstances it can cause others to act unjustly. The tragic hero, or deterioration of a character is a common theme throughout literature. In Macbeth, this is no acception, as fear consumes Macbeth and influences his immoral actions. Clearly Macbeth is a play around fear as oppose to ambition since Macbeth’s actions are driven by his fear of rejection of his wife, loss of power, and betrayal.
The Judges in The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe are considered villains because of how they torture innocent civilians. Okeke is the least villainous, the H-G men are the middle villainous, and the Judges are the most villainous from the three chosen stories. In the story Marriage is a private Affair Okeke is the villain because he treats his son unfairly. For example, when Okeke heard the news of his son’s marriage with a girl he did
How far do you agree that The Great Gatsby is sordid tale of deception, adultery and murder? Firstly, sordid as far as I can see, it is a word for dirty, unethical, degrading or morally unsound actions. When looking at the plots and themes of The Great Gatsby I would agree with this view. Throughout the Great Gatsby there is murder, disloyalty and lying. However, it seems to me that this view does not take into account what F. Scott Fitzgerald is trying to tell us about human beings, that we may have many faults but that most of us are just trying to do the right thing.
As this reversal happens and the Merchant satirizes Januarie blindness, Chaucer reveals the Merchant's blindness, giving him the very significance that he had spent his whole tale trying to deny. Januarie falsifies and destroys import as he loses himself in his "fantasye", reducing reality to objects that he believes he can mold to his own lustful imagination. Thus, he simplifies and subsumes all else under currency or property. Indeed, he exhibits the very traits of his narrator, a merchant-someone who purchases merchandise only to turn around and sell it at a profit. Januarie, therefore, concerns himself with the worth of an object rather than the object itself and, as he tries to find a bride, quite literally tries to shop for the girl who will become his wife: "Heigh fantasye and curious bisynesse Fro day to day gan in the soule impresse Of Januarie aboute his marriage.
9/19/12 Madness in Literature Several authors utilize the aspect of “madness” to emphasize a point, to warn of a maleficent force, or to simply entertain. Two such examples of this technique being used are “Macbeth,” by William Shakespeare, and “Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Bronte. Within these stories, one main character of each story, Macbeth and Catherine Earnshaw, respectively, undergoes a change in nature to become “mad.” The madness of the characters illustrates an argument for the “unnatural” impetus yielding “unnatural” results. In both of these two works, the impetus that leads to each character’s madness involves a deviation from their natural state or behavior that is never resolved, but instead is allowed to compound, causing