Explore Maria Edgeworth's use of the theme of names and titles within Castle Rackrent which may help the reader to understand the theme of social ranking or inequality in Ireland at the time in which the novel was written.
Q: "For post - colonial readers (Castle Rackrent) takes on a new shape as a contribution to the literature of class, race and gender, a remarkably intuitive and far reaching portrait of an unequal society." (Marylin Butler) Using this statement explore Maria Edgeworth's use of the theme of names and titles within Castle Rackrent which may help the reader to understand the theme of social ranking or inequality in Ireland at the time in which the novel was written. Consider: * The significance of the Big House in Ireland. * The historical, political and cultural significance of the Big House in Ireland. * The views of other readers and critics. Maria Edgeworth, born in 1768 was a member of the Anglo-Irish tradition in Ireland, a tradition lasting over four hundred years. Through this time Ireland encountered much change, not only in a social, political and economic sense, but also in a literary sense, thanks to pioneers of Anglo - Irish literature such as Edgeworth. Therefore it must be assumed that the importance of the 'big house' tradition was immense and had a massive impact on both the outlook and content of Castle Rackrent. It would be foolish however to dismiss the novel as anything less than groundbreaking in its day in many ways, not least in exploring the theme of naming and titles, but also in critically analysing the social structure of the
The £1,000,000 Bank Note by Mark Twain - summary
The £1,000,000 Bank Note (1893) By Mark Twain The book I have chosen to do is The £1,000,000 pound Bank-Note, it's a classic book written in 1893. The reason I read this book was because it was written by Mark Twain a world renown author and also I enjoyed a movie which was slightly based on this book (Trading Places, staring Eddie Murphy and Dan Acroyd)(1983). It is quite a popular story which has been reproduced in movie form many times. This book is slightly cofusing because at one stage it says the man has 5 one million pound note but at all other occasions he only has one. the main characters name is not given until near the end of the book. Entry 1 This story is a recount it is being recounted by the main character of the story, who is currently nameless. In the first paragraph he explains that he is alone in the world and is bound to sucsess because of his wits and clean reputation. He then goes on saying that every Saturday he would spend his time sailing in a small boat but one day he had traveled to far and got lost. Luckily a boat had picked him up and took him to London (from USA). When he arrived in England he had only one dollar which kept him alive for a day but the next 24 hours he ramained in the street. The when he was on the streets, a butler asksed him to come into a house, there he met two old rich brothers who gave him an envelope, the old men tell
Sympathy for the betrayers and the betrayed. Cresseid and Madame Bovary are dissimilar to Emma in so far as they experience a development as a result of their infidelity, the former explicitly and the latter implicitly.
More than would be imagined, it is sometimes more difficult to sympathise with the victims of infidelity; easier than we might have imagined to sympathise with the betrayers themselves.' To what extent do you agree with this estimation in relation to the three texts chosen? In none of the three texts can it be said that the adulterers elicit or deserve greater sympathy than the victims of adultery. Despite this imbalance, it would unconsidered and possibly rather supercilious to simply judge the betrayers on their actions without meditating on the reasoning behind the actions and the circumstances in which the adulterers have found themselves. All the adulterers within the text (apart from Jerry in Betrayal (1978), and Rodolphe in Madame Bovary (1857)) merit a degree of sympathy, yet despite this, their actions cannot be wholly justified, and the characters cannot, therefore, be fully exonerated. The savage destruction of Emma Bovary by Flaubert, and Cresseid's gruesome infliction of leprosy are certainly a cause for sympathy in both cases. Emma Bovary's death is a painfully drawn out event in which 'she turned whiter than the sheet at which her fingers kept clawing' and 'soon began to vomit blood. Her limbs were contorted, her body covered with brown blotches.' It is interesting to note the contrast between the description at the beginning of the novel in which Flaubert
Compare and contrast Shakespeare and Defoe's presentations of the characters of Robinson Crusoe and Prospero as omnipotent rulers in their respective societies in their works 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'The Tempest'
Compare and contrast Shakespeare and Defoe's presentations of the characters of Robinson Crusoe and Prospero as omnipotent rulers in their respective societies in their works 'Robinson Crusoe' and 'The Tempest' Throughout Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' and Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe', the protagonists' roles as omnipotent rulers change dramatically. In this essay, I aim to compare and contrast Crusoe and Prospero's roles as rulers, specifically focusing on their relationships with others through which their omnipotence is demonstrated. As much as Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' is a story of survival against all odds and a spiritually fulfilling life lived in solitude, it also makes clear a person's need for society, and in Crusoe's case, the need to be a leader within the societal structure of the 17th Century world. Defoe clearly defines Crusoe as ruler of his island's society. However, even before he is shipwrecked, Crusoe exercises power and authority, the tendencies of a ruler, over his fellow men. Most noticeable is Crusoe's exploitation of slavery. Slavery was a key component of society within the British Empire and is first found in the novel when Crusoe himself is enslaved, "kept by the captain." Upon escaping, Crusoe - despite his disgust at his "miserable" enslavement - bends a slave-boy, Xury, to his will by force after briefly considering drowning him. He offers the boy a
The ending of The Yellow Wallpaper. Breakdown or Breakthrough
'The Yellow Wallpaper' is a document of the mental breakdown of a middle class Victorian woman, but beneath this, is the portrayal of her breakthrough that women are being treated as inferior by men, and her discovery in her insane and insecure state of mind, that woman are chained to a patriarchal society where men are the ones who have the majority of the power and control. But to what extent is it a breakthrough rather than breakdown? The narrator's insanity increases throughout the novel and the reader becomes aware of this by her language; her short and choppy sentences show her agitated state of mind and the fact that she is 'forbidden to "work" until she is well again' gives us more of an insight into her illness. The whole story is a record of her descending to insanity and depression, a document of her thought patterns as her mind becomes clouded as her vivid imagination unravels her strange and confused thoughts (or unravels the true allegory of her obsessive examination of the wallpaper). The end is ultimately a culmination of all her insane (yet allegorically relevant) thinking as she tries to find a 'conclusion' to the 'pointless pattern' that symbolizes the rules of society. As the story progresses, the mysterious yellow wallpaper becomes mentioned increasingly, and the reader is made aware of how unreliable the narrator actually is in this state of mind as
The theme of the Gothic in Rebecca
Name: Student Number: Unit: Gender and Gothic Literature. Unit Number: 84523217 Unit Leader: Dr John Sears. Date: Title: "As I have already argued, gothic fiction need not be horrific and horror fiction need not be gothic... Daphne Du Maurier's book Rebecca, which invokes both the wild wood and labyrinthine versions of the gothic and emphasises the monstrosity without once being other than a disguised novel of domestic relations itself without interest in the supernatural except for atmosphere' (Botting. Page 9) Discuss Fred Botting's view of presence that is created in Rebecca.' 'I declare that this is my own work and that I have followed the code of good academic conduct and have sought, where necessary, advice and guidance in the proper presentation of my work.' Signature:.......................... Date:...................... "As I have already argued, gothic fiction need not be horrific and horror fiction need not be gothic... Daphne Du Maurier's book Rebecca, which invokes both the wild wood and labyrinthine versions of the gothic and emphasises the monstrosity without once being other than a disguised novel of domestic relations itself without interest in the supernatural except for atmosphere.'(Botting. Page 9) Discuss Fred Botting's view of presence that is created in Rebecca.' 'Originating as one of the novel's major forms in the late eighteenth century
What could be termed "Gothic" about the stories of Edgar Allan Poe?
What could be termed "Gothic" about the stories of Edgar Allan Poe? Gothic literature applies to the type of story that was being developed during the Victorian era (the 19th century). Most Victorians had a taste for this type of literature and more and more writers kept starting to write in this genre. Edgar Allan Poe tapped into to other writers' works such as Frankenstein by Mary Shelly. Gothic was started off by people linking emotions and feelings to gothic architecture (both intact and ruined buildings). Gothic stories means those concerned with the dark side of living. They include darkness, obsession, torture, being buried alive, life after death, brutal violence, murder, insanity, the super-natural, revenge, suspense, reincarnation and superstition. All of these are very horrible nasty and gloomy events that can happen; some are more horrible than others. Life after death is impossible and exploring this supernatural theme, is gothic itself. I am now going to talk about the story called the Black Cat. This is the story of someone who, for some reason, gets really annoyed with his cat. It says, "The fury of a demon instantly possessed me" which is a metaphor to describe how enraged he gets suddenly. This is gothic because he believes that that an evil spirit has actually got inside him. His anger is unnecessarily violent which is also gothic. His anger results in
Attitudes to Marriage and Women in Chopin and Gilman
Discuss the attitudes to marriage and women in pre-1900 prose. Your answer must be based on at least 2 literary works of that era. During the pre-1900 era, feminism was rising. This engendered many writers to write about the situation that women were in at that time and which therefore seemed to advocate certain feminist beliefs and attitudes. Some of the writings can even be said to be trying to make certain feminist-related changes. In this essay, I shall attempt to determine the ideas they seem to be suggesting and the feelings they try to incite. I will use Kate Chopin's The Story Of An Hour as well as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper as the basis of my exploration. One of the primary topics that the works of this era explore is the idea of marriage. They appear to be contending the notion that marriage is comparable to a cage where women are locked in and their freedom removed. The Story Of An Hour certainly supports this conclusion. No doubt, the moment Mrs. Mallard receives the news of her husband's death, she goes through a "storm of grief". Yet, the storm is short, and soon she "could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all aquiver with the new spring of life" and that "there were patches of blue sky...in the west facing her window". It is as though her husband's death implies life and a new beginning for Mrs. Mallard.
In the writing of Edgar Allan Poe, we see investigations into abnormal psychological states and obsessive behaviour. By comparing The Tell-Tale Heart and The Cask of Amontillado explain to what extent you think this is true.
In the writing of Edgar Allan Poe, we see investigations into abnormal psychological states and obsessive behaviour. By comparing 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' explain to what extent you think this is true. Both 'The Tell-Tale Heart' and 'The Cask of Amontillado' reveal a psychotic narrator unravelling a macabre tale of irrational fear or revenge. But how does Poe so convincingly evoke the distorted mind of such a character? One way that Poe achieves this is that both stories employ the first person narrator -a technique which allows the reader a privileged view inside the character's mind. In TTH, the unnamed narrator and in TCoA, it is Montreso. Everything that is told to us has to pass through the narrator's perception and this allows us to judge his trustworthiness, his biased viewpoint, his state of mind. In both stories, the protagonist in both stories reveals immediately, in fact in the very first line of the story, that they both victims to mania. The protagonist of TTH is clearly mad. His first utterance with the exclamation , staccato phrasing, pauses , repetitions gives the effect of a highly agitated mind who immediately asks us to concord with him that he is completely sane: "True! - nervous - very, very dreadfully nervous I had been, and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" The question only serves to confirm in our minds that he is
How does Auden portray his grief and loss in Funeral Blues?
How does Auden portray his grief and loss in Funeral Blues? The poem Funeral Blues is about the death of the poet's very close lover, we are not sure exactly who this person is but the poet was obviously close to him. The poet expresses his deepest feelings in the poem by trying to stop everything in the world while he grieves for the death of his lover My first impression of the poem is that this poem is a lot easier to understand compared to "The Voice" and it had more meaning to it. It also felt like it wasn't a story compared to "The Voice" its more of an assertive poem. The poet Auden uses fast flowing stanzas that make the poem seem urgent and assertive. Where as the stanzas in The Voice use language that is slow and that lacked urgency. The poem seems to have been written very soon after the death of the lover and before the funeral has taken place. "Bring out the coffin" this tells the reader that the funeral has not yet taken place. The poem also suggests that it was written later than the Victorian times, in the 20th century as the poet mentions the use of telephones and aeroplanes "cut off the telephone," "Let aeroplane circle" This tells us it must have been around the 20th century as they didn't have aeroplanes and telephones before that time. This poem has a more modern attitude to death as in Victorian times people would often die young as a result of