_________________________________________________________ Mark Haddon’s novel, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, is a remarkable novel exploring the world of Christopher, a fifteen-year-old boy with Aspergers Syndrome. As a consequence, this condition, leaves Christopher’s ability to emotionally connect with people scarce. Haddon explores Christopher’s many behavioural problems, along with the emotional and physical journey which takes place in his life to discover truth – who killed Wellington? As the story unravels we discover a lot more than just Wellington’s murderer, resulting in the novels mysteriousness and immensity until the very end. The gulf which separates Christopher from his parents and the rest of us makes him unconditionally unique as a result of his disability, resulting in him to be considered as an ‘unsolved mystery’.
Early on in the novel during his nervous breakdown Frankenstein he says that the ‘season contributed greatly to my convalescence.’ This soothing effect nature has on the mind is replicated when the creature, after having endured a hellish, bitterly cold winter alone, finds that ‘spring cheered even’ him, inducing feelings of ‘gentleness and pleasure’. Furthermore, similarities can be seen by the language used. An example of this is the repeated use of the phrase, “miserable wretch”. Initially this phrase is applied to the creature on the night of its birth, “the wretch”. Later, however, the author uses the same description for his creator Victor as he soon becomes “so miserable a wretch”, demonstrating how they ultimately face the same fate.
What effect does the wolf’s presence have on Jake’s father? b. What effect does his father’s story have on him? c. Is the wolf real? d. If the wolf is not real, what is the best explanation for the father’s experience?
Told from the memories and records of Elie Wiesel, a young boy taken prisoner in the camps, Night displays the confronting truth behind the time of the Holocaust. Elizer retells stories and moments that he had been confronted with in the camps and also reveals amounts of incredible courage and determination to survive. The story travels through the life of the young boy spending a minuscule amount of his childhood in Sighet, Transylvania, and the
He lived around the same time period that Kafka was alive, and thus there are many parallelisms in Kafka’s book, The Metamorphosis. One major theory of Freud was the theory of the conscious and unconscious mind. “When Gregor Samsa woke up one night from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” (page1) Dreams were a big deal to Freud, and he believed that they always had a deep underlying meaning. The dreams that Gregor had the night before he turned into a bug are examples of the unconscious mind at work. Dreams are reflections of the feelings and desires of the unconscious mind.
As an actor preparing for the role of Electra, what aspects of her character would you emphasise in creating the final performance? In your answer you should refer to three key scenes in which the character appears. Electra is an ancient Greek play by Sophocles. The play opens with Orestes, Electra’s brother, deciding to pretend he is dead in order to take revenge for his father, Agamemnon’s, death. Electra fights with her mother, Clytemnestra, and her mother’s lover, Aegisthus, because she feels betrayed by them as they killed her father.
Monster and Beast This paper will compare the themes of the novel Frankenstein, a book written by Mary Shelley which was published anonymously in 1818 with Disney’s 1991 animated film, Beauty and the Beast, a musical by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. The novel and the film both have remarkable similarities and connection in terms of the characters, settings and symbols used. The novel starts with Victor Frankenstein’s meddling with the natural set of things including death. In Frankenstein’s intelligent but obsessive mind, he reanimates a creature only to realize his mistakes and in the end makes him miserable. In the film, the beast’s story begins with an old woman begging for shelter from the cold on a castle owned by a heartless prince.
In ancient Greece fate was very strongly believed in. Fate is defined as something that unavoidably falls upon a person. Oedipus the King, by Sophocles, is old Grecian literature that really makes the reader think about whether there really is such a thing called fate or free will. In Oedipus the King an unfortunate man, named Oedipus, is given a prophecy that he will kill his father and marry his mother. Despite Oedipus’s tries to make sure his prophecy does not come true.
Romanticism in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein Frankenstein is the Romantic story of a man who creates a monster. The story is not considered to be a modern day romance, but it includes all the characteristics of what eighteenth century romance is. The imaginative story has the romantic hero, Victor Frankenstein, who sees nature and beauty throughout his life and awes at it, using nature as inspiration and a mental escape. Captain Watson is telling the hero’s story in a letter to his sister, relaying all the romanticism of Victor’s life. When thinking of romanticism, my first thought would be that of something having to do with the involvement of a man and a woman who are in, or attempting to begin a personal relationship.
In Jack London’s novel, The Call of the Wild the presence of Naturalism is evident. Burk is a wolf who is personalized to a human; he tells his story like any human would, but through a dog’s eyes. This makes Naturalism easy to portray. London shows Naturalism through characteristics, themes and by supporting the definition of Naturalism throughout the novel. Some characteristics of Naturalism include character’s lives that are dictated by passion, heredity, or instinct, heroic actions, violent deaths, and a plot that has “chronicle of despair” (Campbell).