Sir Gawain And The Green Knight
.... failure (except when he fails at defeating the dragon because he has already proved himself and goes with honor, which is different from initially failing). In the last lines of the story the author clearly acknowledges Beowulf’s overall triumph, "Telling stories of their dead king and his greatness, his glory, praising him for heroic deeds, for a life as noble as his name."
Sir Gawain on the other hand is deemed a hero but seems to lack something that Beowulf simply does not. This is becaus .....
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Sir Gawain And The Green Knight: Stanza 74
.... the wound on his neck, Sir Gawain still feels that he has sinned, and is not as willing to forgive himself. He decides that more atonement is in order, so he makes the decision to wear the girdle from then on, as a sign of his eternal sin, but even then he does not feel that he has been cleansed of his sin. He understands that he will be forced to bear the shame and disgrace of the sin for the rest of his life.
The observers’ opinions of whether Sir Gawain is forgiven are the complete opposite of Sir .....
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Sir Gawain And The Green Knight: The Role Of Women
.... and Morgan the Fay instigates the entire plot, wielding enough power. The author is using them as a metaphor for other anti-social forces and dangers outside the control of feudalism and chivalry, drawing upon biblical and classical examples in his audience's minds of where femininity is linked with subversiveness. Lady Bertilak is clearly seen in the Biblical role of the temptress, the Eve who led Adam astray--in Gawain, she represents the traditional female archetypes of courtly love, disobedience, lust .....
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Sister Carrie
.... is just a performance of a role? I think we can also talk about a kind of "prostitution" as for the female characters, namely Carrie and Julia. Carrie sells herself for $20, and she is paid far more for her body than she is for her labor. Julia also demands money which makes her marriage also as a form of prostitution. Is sex in this world, consumption society, a woman’s most marketable product? Do these women have or even can they have their own faces? Hurstwood’s desire is to possess, to poss .....
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Sister Carrie
.... and does not know how to act or what to think as shown in this passage:
There was something satisfactory in the attention of this individual with good clothes….She realized that she was of interest to him from the one standpoint which a woman both delights in and fears. Her manner was simple, though for the very reason that she had not yet learned the many little affections with which women conceal their true feelings.
(pp. 11-12, Sister Carrie)
Carrie didn’t know what to expect when she got .....
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Six Characters In Search Of An Author
.... the end of his rope with the greedy characters (who have been from the start trying to coerce him into writing a script for non-union wages), shouts "Reality! Fantasy! Who needs this! What does this mean?" and the audience, in unison, shouts back, "It's us! We're here!" The moment immediately after that, when the whole cast laughs directly at the audience, pointing at them in glee, is nearly unbearable for an audience, as shown by the riot after the first performance, when the audience not only ripp .....
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Skunk Hour
.... Even if the occupants of those cars knew they were being observed, chances are they would not associate themselves with the speaker.
In addition, Robert Lowell portrays his character as something akin to a stalker, illustrated in the following excerpt.
One dark night,
my Tudor Ford climbed the hill’s skull;
I watched for love-cars.
(Lowell 25-27)
Why would anyone be out alone, searching for lovers who do not desire intrus .....
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Slaves Of The White God
.... and injustice which was characteristic of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and European presence in the New World.
During the 16th century, the Spaniards became the first of the colonial masters to introduce African slaves into the New World. From its origin in Hispaniola, African slavery spread throughout the rest of Latin America including Cuba, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. By the 16th and 17th centuries, Mexico and Peru had become the largest importers of slaves in Latin America. However, .....
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Sluaghterhouse-Five
.... fathers are very influential in a boy’s growing up. In a terrible encounter with his father when Billy was young, Mr. Pilgrim sets the stage for Billy’s insanity:
Little Billy was terrified because his father had said Billy was going to learn to swim by the method of sink-or-swim. His father was going to throw Billy into the deep end, and Billy was going to damn well swim. It was like an execution. Billy was numb as his father carried him from the shower room to the pool. His eyes were closed .....
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Smerdyakov
.... on the part of Fyodor are cause for his punishment.
While Fyodor neglected his fatherly duties to his other three sons, to this fourth, he rejects them completely. He finds the controversy around the mystery of the boy's conception amusing. He employs his own son as one of his servants, as his "lackey." Although incredible attention to detail is paid to the story of Lizaveta, Dostoevsky waits to speak of the boy himself. It is as if the author is all ready separating this last son. Dostoevsky c .....
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Snow Falling On Cedars
.... victim’s mother, Etta, cheated them. She sold their seven acres of strawberry land to another farmer, because of lack of the last payment during their removal. This disreputable action she took, was caused by her racist thoughts that she had toward Japanese. This has been demonstrated out in her conversation with her husband, she said, "We’re not such paupers as to sell to Japs, are we? For new clothes? For a pouch of fancy pipe tobacco?" (Guterson 119). Because of her being racist, it had .....
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Snow Falling On Cedars
.... forces them to be secretive about their relationship. When Hatsue is forced to move away because of WWII regulations, she ends her relationship with Ishmael, sending him into a life filled with jealousy and grief.
Howard Frank Mosher paints the same portrait for us, only in a more commonly know setting. A black man and his son are cognizant of their color when they are forced to live in a town of solely white people. As the murder trial unfolds, we find out that the man’s son also has been having a re .....
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So Long A Letter
.... at a very early age. The rate of girls going to school is by far lower than that of boys. Parents' choices of investment in their children completely depend on their view of the latter's worth as adults.
The relationship between Ramatoulaye (Rama), a Senegalese women, and her friend, Aissatou, who left the familiarity of Senegal for life in the United States after a divorce from here husband, is the defining relationship in the book. Both women have taken on roles that are not in direct line with .....
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Solo
.... He
betrays symptoms of his discontent with his behavior
hoping that she will make some kind of logical relation.
This drastic change in his behavior does not spark a
question of doubt in his mother's mind. The connection
between his recent return home and his changing behavior is
not made. Harold isolates himself from his family and his
community. He does not "want any consequences." The
psychological damage he receives from the war causes him to
act cold and emotionless. Harold's .....
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Somersby
.... to the character in the other story.
Jack Sommersby and John Proctor made similar decisions prior to not confessing or denying the crimes they were accused of committing. Sommersby did not try to deny the charges brought up against him for the murder of a man in a nearby town that he did not kill nor does he sustain the idea that he is not really Jack Sommersby. Proctor does not formally confess to being a wizard nor did he try to deny the charge. They both had similar reasons for making the .....
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