Humor-driven Social Commentary in the Medieval Period. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" highlights the faults of knights and of chivalry. "The General Prologue" highlights the shift away from serfdom.
Dr. B British Literature 26 September 2021 Humor-driven Social Commentary in the Medieval Period The medieval period was an interesting time for literature as literacy was not common except among the aristocracy. The authors of the time would simply write down the oral tales from before, adding whatever they needed for their written version. It was also a time of social and political unrest. The rise of the merchant class was a drastic shift away from the feudal system. Literature during this time tended to be funny. Humor and humorous commentary is a prevalent theme throughout most of its secular literary works. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is an Arthurian tale and is a perfect example of social commentary in medieval literature. Its commentary on chivalric code and the hubris of the crown is timeless and can still be learned from today. It also holds comedic value in its humorous depiction of Sir Gawain's quest. "The General Prologue" of The Canterbury Tales is a perfect example of humor in medieval literature. Chaucer uses humor generously throughout The Canterbury Tales allowing it to be a more palatable series of stories that comment on social issues. However the story also serves as a very thorough social commentary on many different peoples during the medieval period. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" is a representative piece of medieval literature because
Ghost Story.
Ghost Story It was 11.35pm on Christmas Eve and Stephen was returning home from his brother's celebratory party. As he drove down the road, the crunch of the thick snow under his tires was audible and smiling dreamily, he looked at the shining, sparkling, foot-deep snow, visible in his headlights. He buried his chin further down into his Burberry scarf and replaced his woollen hat that was hiding his unruly mop of curly auburn locks. His newly bought Ford Focus ran smoothly, as he began anticipating Christmas Day, feeling youthful again. He would be getting up early the following day, and taking the short trip to his Father's house, meeting up with his parents, twin sister's Helena and Sharon, brother Mark and Mark's fiancée Kate, as well as being introduced to Sharon's current boyfriend, his name Stephen could not recall. The party he'd just been to was a reminder of what was to come the next day; extraneous amounts of food, beaming faces, roasting fires and gallons of alcoholic drinks. Stephen, however, seldom drank and was extremely careful, especially since recently passing his driving test. 'In fact,' he thought to himself, impressed, ' I haven't drank since my 20th birthday which was over three months ago!' The good-looking accountant became involved in a nostalgic daydream as he thought about the Christmas's he had many years ago with his siblings. He detested
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Mark Twain exposes many truths through this novel by satirising the adults and showing their pretentiousness. However when I relate this truth to the modern world I realise Twain wrote the novel ahead of his time. This second half of this novel would be better applied to the modern day. Mark Twain uses satire to expose the truth about the adults; he tells us that they are pretentious, false and dishonest. He attacks the whole pretentiousness and artificial situation that they had created. We see that during a Sunday service in the local chapel the people are all sitting in their Sunday best and are pretending to pay the best attention to the minister. But Tom who is somewhat disinterested in the whole thing and yearns for freedom as he hates being locked up, takes out a pinch bug. He starts messing with this bug but then drops it. The minister's poodle which was in the church suddenly catches an eye of the bug. He walks up and tries to somehow attack it. But he is unsuccessful in the most dramatic way with the pinch bug biting the dog and forcing it to run around in quite a wild fashion due to the extreme pain. The congregation have been watching since the dog first went to the bug, but now they are laughing and have drowned out the minister's sermon. "By this time the whole church was red-faced and suffocating with suppressed
The analyzation of The Great Gatsby.
AN ANALYZATION OF THE GREAT GATSBY BY PRISCILLA A. MEADOWS NOVEMBER 17, 2000 The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald takes place among the contrast of the neighboring rich and poor. After reuniting with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, Nick Calloway is thrust into a world in which both rich and poor are miserable and extra marital affairs are common. Not long after meeting Daisy's husband, Tom Buchanan, Nick is soon exposed to the affair Tom is having with Myrtle Wilson. Myrtle Wilson is the wife of auto-mechanic, George Wilson. About this time Jay Gatsby enters the lives of many of the locals as the elusive host to many elaborate parties. Gatsby's interest in Nick eludes him until Jordan Baker enlightens him to the love Gatsby has long felt for Daisy. Jordan is Nicks love interest and a well-known golf champion. As a good friend to Daisy, Jordan has an insight to the feelings that are felt between Gatsby and Daisy. All affairs of the heart come to light one tragic evening and as Gatsby and Daisy leave the others behind Myrtle is killed as she runs across the street. Witnesses do not see the driver and Gatsby is soon telling Nick that Daisy had been driving the car on that fateful night. A mournful George out for vengeance eventually finds his way to Tom. Tom has no intentions of admitting adultery with Myrtle, so he instead turns George's attention to Gatsby
How do the two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, relate to the major characters and themes in Wuthering Heights?
How do the two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, relate to the major characters and themes in Wuthering Heights? Wuthering Heights the novel is full of many themes. There is passion, revenge, and destruction within the novel. There are also darkness and light, heaven and hell, storm and calm, love and hate, crime and punishment, ignorance versus education, nature versus culture and life and death within it. The main contrasts in the book are between the two houses that are the homes to most characters in the novel, Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights with the former representing heaven, light and peace, and the latter more reminiscent of hell, dark and hostility. The houses feature so much in this novel, with even the title "Wuthering Heights" being the name of one of them, it could be said that the two houses almost take place as characters themselves. The book (as well as many of the characters contained within it) has a sensation of the wild and desolate. The actual physical landscape of the novel is described in such a way that it reflects the emotional landscapes of many of those who live within it. Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights in the mid 19th Century, a time when Gothic novels were popular. A typical Gothic novel has elements of horror, supernatural, cruelty, terror and suspense. Usually set in monasteries or castles, Gothic novels and
Discuss the variety of narrative techniques used in 'The Handmaid's Tale.'
Discuss the variety of narrative techniques used in 'The Handmaid's Tale.' 'The Handmaid's Tale' has come a long way from the chronological Bildungsroman like David Copperfield or Great Expectations. Offred's complex narrative signals the post modern contempory nature of Margaret Atwood's storytelling technique. The main aim of the post-modernists was to get away from the chronological novel to 'stream of consciencenss', which represents the complex ways that the memory works. Offred is continually drawing our attention to her storytelling process, 'I would like to believe this is a story I'm telling...there will be an ending, to the story and real life will come after it.' Atwood also uses different tenses in her narrative technique, for she sometimes uses present tense for stories that were written in the past and past tense to talk about experiences in the Red Centre and the time before. The technique of constantly drawing attention to the way fiction is created is called Metanarrative Technique. The emphasis throughout is on process and reconstruction, where 'truth' is only a matter of the teller's perspective, by showing how stories, truth, even history can be revised, for example, Offred thinks about killing the commander when he asks to kiss her, but she didn't really. She added this in when she was making the tapes: 'In fact I don't think about anything of the kind;
Consider George Orwells Nineteen Eighty-four from a Marxist perspective.
Jon Kinsella Theoretical & Critical Perspectives 15/2/2012 Consider George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four from a Marxist perspective. In Nineteen Eighty-four, Orwell purposely challenges the set of pre-established notions about class consciousness held in Marxism to accentuate his own socio-political values. Marx and Engels assert in their Communist Manifesto1 that, “Its [the upper class/bourgeoisie’s] fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable” and that “[The] organisation of the proletarians into a class, and consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier.”2 Marx and Engels’ clearly believe, in any oppressive and despotic society, the working class will ultimately become conscious of how it is being exploited and spark a revolution. However, in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell presents us with a unique situation, which purposefully and distinctively contrasts to that perspective by representing the working class ‘Proles’ as no threat whatsoever to the upper class “Inner Party” and “Big Brother’s” continuous totalitarian regime. “It is an abiding characteristic of the low that they are too much crushed by drudgery to be more than intermittently conscious of anything outside their daily
With reference to Judith Butler's Precarious Lives, explain how Chris Abani's novel The Virgin of Flames re-imagines global community in the contexts of violence, war and mourning.
With reference to Judith Butler's Precarious Lives, explain how Chris Abani's novel The Virgin of Flames re-imagines global community in the contexts of violence, war and mourning. Chris Abani’s novel The Virgin of Flames is a post 9/11 narrative that inadvertently experiments with Judith Butler’s concept of “reimagining the possibility of community on the basis of vulnerability and loss” (20). This is a novel encapsulated in a theme of violence, war and mourning and the four mysteries displayed to Black by the angel Gabriel operate as a catalyst of Abani’s perception of how society has unravelled and this understanding could pave the way for a more candid approach to re-organise society. These four stages represent “the subtle movements that made and unmade a life” (143) and the mysteries; the joyful, the luminous, the sorrowful and the glorious serve to represent distinctive features of Butler’s idea of a hierarchy of grief but more importantly they epitomise her concept of how community can be re-imagined. First we need to look at Butler’s hypothesis, her main proposition is that the powers of violence, war and mourning should not bring us to retaliate but should provide us with the consciousness that our lives are fundamentally reliant on others. Acknowledging our dependency and susceptibility to others would serve as the first step in the creation of
Du Bois theory of propaganda and African American media portrayal is supported by events in Richard Wrights novel "Native Son".
Arogundade Aima Arogundade Juliana Rausch English 802 November 19 2012 Bigger: A Product of Popular Culture and Racism W.E.B Du Bois is an American Sociologist and civil rights activist whose essay “The and “The Criteria of Negro Art” support the notion that art is an effective way for underrepresented individuals to represent themselves, get their voice heard and in the process resist oppression. He states that all “art is propaganda” (Du Bois 160). Furthermore, he argues that even though all art is propaganda but all propaganda is not art. For art to be considered propaganda, it has to be two-sided and not just one-sided. He states how African Americans are displayed in the media is really biased because the people who put the image of African Americans out are mostly White and for the outside world to better understand Blacks, the Blacks have to take action and start using their creativity to express themselves. Du Bois’ theory of propaganda and African American media portrayal is supported by events in Richard Wright’s novel Native Son. Native Son is a novel about a poor 20 year old African American young man, Bigger Thomas and his struggles in Chicago’s South Side ghetto in the 1930’s. The novel focuses on Bigger and how he struggles with his poverty stricken condition, his family, friends, racial and economic oppression. Bigger is portrayed as a
Charles Dickens charts the development of several major characters in Hard Times to conclude that the only characters who have can see through both fact and fancy are successful.
The Two Things Needful The head is the factory where linear facts are passed down brain cells to form packaged products: our loveless actions. On the contrary, the heart is the circus where non-linear performers dance and sing and clown around to ultimately win the love of the audience. But as the men of reason themselves have shown us, the heart is truly in the head, as the heart is only a pumping organ and the head has the true capacity to love. In Hard Times, Charles Dickens explores the causes and consequences of both head-heavy, linear thinking and of heart-heavy, non-linear thinking through symbolism and the vivid characterization and progression of several characters to ultimately convey that a balance of both fact and fancy, social and natural order, is needful for a fulfilling life. Due to the influence of social order, Gradgrind establishes a home based solely on facts, restricting his wife and his children from using their hearts and being fanciful. Gradgrind grew up in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, a time where the “ascendancy of the clock and the machine tore [man] from nature.” Believing that social order was solely the foundation of life, he establishes a home called Stone Lodge, a name symbolic of how his family is dull and lacks loving relationships between members. When Louisa was young, he father told her to never wonder, indicative of how