PAPER Topics

... through some flaw [hamartia]". The character should be famous or prosperous, like Oedipus or Medea. What Aristotle meant by hamartia cannot be established. In each play we read you should particularly consider the following possibilities. (1) A hamartia may be simply an intellectual mistake or an error in judgement. For example when a character has the facts wrong or doesn't know when to stop trying to get dangerous information. (2) Hamartia may be a moral weakness, especially hubris, as when a character is moral in every way except for being prideful enough to insult a god. (Of course you are free to decide that the tragic hero of any play, ancient or modern, does not have a hamarti ...

... a reporter on the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, and in 1863 he began signing his articles with the pseudonym “Mark Twain,” a Mississippi River phrase meaning two fathoms deep. After moving to San Francisco in 1864, Twain met the American writers Artemus Ward and Bret Harte, who encouraged him in his work. In 1865 Twain reworked a tale he had heard in the California gold fields; within months the author and the story, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” had become national sensations. In 1867 Twain lectured in New York City, and in the same year he visited Europe and the Holy Land. He wrote of these travels in The Innocents Abroad, ...

... All our experiences fuse into our personalities. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient. I was born in trouble! Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little, lost his Father, at the age of six, to violence of the Klu Klux Klan, although Newspapers at the time, reported differently "Earl Little, 41,…sustained fatal injuries… when he was run over by a streetcar…" (Myers 21) This tragedy, caused a great tear in Malcolm's family. By the age of thirteen, Malcolm had seen his house burn down. He had been exposed to the violent death of his father, had known extreme hunger, had seen the slow breakdown of his mother, and had also seen brothers and sisters placed in homes. ...

... reasons. The essay Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus), 1942, expounds Camus's notion of the absurd and of its acceptance with "the total absence of hope, which has nothing to do with despair, a continual refusal, which must not be confused with renouncement - and a conscious dissatisfaction". Meursault, central character of L'Étranger (The Stranger), 1942, illustrates much of this essay: man as the nauseated victim of the absurd orthodoxy of habit, later - when the young killer faces execution - tempted by despair, hope, and salvation. Dr. Rieux of La Peste (The Plague), 1947, who tirelessly attends the plague-stricken citizens of Oran, enacts the revolt against a world of the a ...

... in Europe. Women were viewed as beautiful and mortal beings. People such as Rodin were representing women in paintings and sculptures sexually. Sex was becoming something more than just a means of reproduction. Suddenly Adams was far, far away from his Puritan custom-bound life. People were no longer motivated by religion, being saved by God, and going to heaven; science, technology, money, and power had taken over the drives of man. Religion (a common “scale” of the past) had taken the backseat to science, technology, money, power, and the new ideas and art of sex (all new “scales” of the present and the future). “In opposition to the medieval Virg ...

... from the Portuguese (1849), Elizabeth let the love for her husband speak. The whole collection is forty-four poems written to Robert Browning. Aurora Leigh (1857) is yet another example of love being prominent in Elizabeth’s writings. Another element in Elizabeth’s writings is statements about faith and her illness/death. In the closing line of her “most famous sonnet” (p.656) Sonnet 43 Elizabeth says, “and if God choose,/ I shall but love thee better after death.” In the 19th century, Elizabeth Barrett Browning helped to revive the sonnet cycle, which is a series of sonnets loosely connected by a common subject or theme. Her cycles characte ...

... away from and put in foster homes. Kathleen had the habit of disappearing for days and weeks at a time, leaving Charlie with his grandmother or aunt. Kathleen Maddox was sentenced to a penitentiary for armed robbery, Charlie was sent to live with his aunt and uncle; who were going to try to straighten him out. When Kathleen was released from jail she didn't want Charlie as her responsibility, preferring her life of drinking. At this point in time she was willing to trade Charlie for a glass of beer. Charlie was adapted to a life of violence and loneliness. He kept to himself and didn't have any friends. Charlie was an observer, he never got involved or talked to people. Soon Charlie wa ...

... Marlowe (1564- 1593)” par. 2). “After receiving his degree in 1587, he moved to London to begin his career as a playwright. All of his plays were believed to be written between 1587 and 1593. His works include Tamburlaine, parts one and two, the Jew of Malta, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, Edward II, Queen of Carthage, and the Massacre at Paris. He also wrote the great poems, Hero and Leander and the Passionate Sherherd”(“Christopher Marlowe(1564- 1593)” par. 3,4). “In the plays that he wrote, he established blank verse as the predominant form in English Drama”(“Marlowe Christopher”, Encarta, par. 3). Shakespeare also wrote in this form and his plays are very similar to Mar ...

... how to pilot a steamboat. That became his job until the Civil War closed the Mississippi River, and it set him up for "Old Times on the Mississippi" and "Life on the Mississippi." In 1861, Twain traveled to Carson City, Nevada, with his brother Orion. After attempts for silver and gold mining had failed, he continued to write for newspapers. It was in 1863 when Samuel Clemens adopted the name "Mark Twain", a riverman's term for "two fathoms" deep. In 1884 Twain went to San Francisco and reached national fame with his story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." He then took a trip to Hawaii which started him on a very successful career as a public speaker. Hi ...

... Sarty, Abner’s son, dislikes what his father does out of acts of hate and tries to stop it (Faulkner “Barn” 23). He attempts to put out the “fire” inside his father. He is sick of his family’s way of life and is ready for a change no matter what it takes, even if it means going against his own blood. No matter what is done, they can not stop Abner from lashing out and burning buildings. Through his sheer enjoyment of the negative sides of his anger and power, Abner rips his family apart. He does so by forcing his family to put up with the consequences of his actions. In a way, Faulkner writes as a moralist. He demonstrates, through his charac ...