Writers Page 103

Bleak House Bleak House is a twin narrative. It faces in two directions (past and present); it incorporates two worlds (private and public); and it is told in two voices, one of which is serious, often pained, or realistic, the other parodic, playful, and deliberately artificial. Their mixture produces uncanny and undecidable effects. Bleak House,…

Joseph Conrad’s books, The Secret Sharer and Heart of Darkness, both deal witheach of our “dark selves”. These books also have similarities which are overwhelming. In describing the true inner self of humans, Conrad used many symbols which havebecome apparent in many of his novels. Conrad uses the same or very similar objects inmany of…

While many stories have been written on the topic of love, Kate Chopin’s “The Story of an Hour” and Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette’s “The Hand” present a unique perspective on love and marriage. These two short stories provide insight into how love may not always be present in marriage, how attraction fades over time, and that marriage…

In F. S. Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, themes, characters, and motifs are skillfully employed to create one of the most renowned novels ever written. The story centers around the quest for love in a difficult society. Fitzgerald presents different facets of life, encompassing both the affluent and the destitute, as well as those falling in…

Shakespeare’s play Hamlet depicts the protagonist undergoing a significant transformation from good to evil. This change is triggered by the intense anguish and rage he experiences following his father’s death, his mother’s hasty remarriage, and the loss of his beloved Ophelia. These tragedies instill within Hamlet a deep-seated resentment and an inability to forgive, which…

Born in Florence, Italy in 1469, Niccol Machiavelli was the first great political philosopher of the Renaissance. Once a administrative official and diplomat for the province of Florence, he was removed from office when the Medici household was restored to power in 1512. He retired to his state place where he, among other plants, penned…

As everyone knows, Robert E. Howard and his parents are buried in Brownwood’s Greenleaf Cemetery. The cemetery is located on Highway 377 just south of Howard Payne University. It is named for Greenleaf Fisk, the founder of Brownwood. Fisk donated the land for Greenleaf to the city and is also buried in the cemetery. On…

While reading the essay Shooting an Elephant, first published in 1 936 by Eric Blair under the pen name of George Orwell, one gets captivated by the intricate web of rhetoric that Blair weaves throughout the piece. Surely, the reason this essay keeps the attention of the reader so well is because Blair writes with…

Writers have always drawn inspiration from real events for their stories. Joyce Carol Oates is now being criticized as unethical for just that. The critics claim that it was not ethical for Oates to use the events that befell John Fiocco Jr. in her story “Landfill”, and also for including many similarities between Fiocco and…

During the 1920s, the United States underwent an economic boom. People eagerly adopted opulent lifestyles, mistakenly assuming that wealth would bring them joy. This era also witnessed the enactment of alcohol prohibition and the empowerment of women. Consequently, parties, drinking, and liberated women became synonymous with affluence. Simultaneously, those in lower social classes tirelessly pursued…