Essays on Art Movements

248

Immortality in Thomas Gray’s "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard"

2 pages / 993 words

Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a melancholic poem that considers the possibility of immortality for the people buried in the churchyard the speaker visits. Although previous sections of the poem explore different ideas, such as the speaker’s remorse for those who...

Poetry Romantic Era

249

The Descriptive and Reflective Elements of Wordsworth’s "Tintern Abbey" and Gray’s "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"

3 pages / 1282 words

In his article On Reading Romantic Poetry, L. J. Swingle identifies the Romantic poet’s tendency to “think into the human heart” by using rustic description to explore “the naked dignity of man”. This analysis certainly holds true for William Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and Thomas Gray’s...

Poetry Romantic Era

250

Behaving Reasonably: a Defense of Romance in Howells’s Realistic Fiction

5 pages / 2208 words

Harry T. Moore, in the afterword to William Dean Howells’s The Rise of Silas Lapham, says, “Much of the criticism of Silas Lapham has been directed at the love-story subplot” (345). Critics of Howells are quick to point out the Romantic elements in this otherwise...

Novel Realism

251

Analysis of a Passage in The Prelude

5 pages / 2152 words

In the stichic passage from William Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem The Prelude, the speaker, who represents Wordsworth himself, encounters unfamiliar aspects of the natural world. The passage is a bildungsroman in verse, a coming-of-age poem that chronicles the psychological growth of the speaker. In the passage,...

Romantic Era Romanticism

252

Romantic Poets & The Poetic Problem of Representing London

5 pages / 2195 words

Writing on nineteenth-century London poetry, William Sharpe comments that ‘Regardless of shared reference to sublimity, fog, of Babylonian blindness, each poet’s London is different. Each time we read ‘London’ we have to begin again.’ For poets in the late eighteenth, and early nineteenth centuries, London...

Poetry Romantic Era Romanticism

253

Madness in The New York Trilogy

3 pages / 1169 words

Author Philip K. Dick once said, “It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.” The theme of the source of madness is explored in all three stories that form Paul Auster’s novel The New York Trilogy. The three relatively short detective stories...

Novel Postmodernism

254

Gender, Identity, and Expression in 19th Century British Society

5 pages / 1596 words

Dorothy Wordsworth, poetess, diarist, and sister of William Wordsworth, a well-known Romantic author, was not recognized as a notable literary figure until well after her death in 1855. Despite her close connection with her brother, her strong friendship with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and her general...

Poetry Romantic Era

255

The Task of a Reader to a Narrative

1 page / 1847 words

In October 1937, Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina—one of Latin America’s most brutal dictators—directly ordered the execution of all Haitians then living in the Spanish-speaking Dominican Republic. People suspected of being Haitian were asked to pronounce the Spanish word for parsley (“perejil”). If the suspect failed...

Nation Building Nutrition Orientalism

256

The View of Entropy in The Crying of Lot 49

3 pages / 1279 words

In The Crying of Lot 49, Thomas Pynchon expresses a very interesting view of entropy through the actions of Oedipa Maas. In communication theory, entropy is a measure of the efficiency of a system, as a code or language, in transmitting information. Otherwise, the definition...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

257

The Use of Imagery to Portray Conspiracy in The Crying of Lot 49

3 pages / 1628 words

Near the end of Thomas Pynchon’s 1965 novel The Crying of Lot 49, the protagonist Oedipa finds herself at a crossroads after trying to unravel the mystery of W.A.S.T.E., a conspiratorial underground postal system, without finding many tangible results. “It was now like walking among...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

258

Meaningless Fragments Symbolizing Meaninglessness in 'The Crying of Lot 49'

3 pages / 1277 words

Introduction: The Postmodern Landscape In Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, standard hierarchical structures are abandoned in a setting of postmodern cultural chaos. The use of fragmented pop culture contributes to many aspects of the book, namely the sense of combined freedom in the...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

259

The Crying of Lot 49 and Chaos

3 pages / 1198 words

A recurring theme that can be found in Thomas Pynchon’s novel The Crying of Lot 49 is the conception that chaos has a tremendous effect on society. Pynchon engages in a dualistic method of literary technique to engender the realization of the effect that chaos...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

260

Effects of Modernity Described in 'Crying of Lot 49' and 'Snow White'

5 pages / 2436 words

America used to be known as the land of opportunity. That was before the wars and the advent of technology. For post-modern authors, modernity and prosperity has turned America into a disappointment. Barthelme’s Snow White and Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 share similar ideas...

Postmodernism Short Story Snow White The Crying of Lot 49

261

Transformation to Illusions from Realism in Art

1 page / 2711 words

During the modernist era, artists gradually moved away from realism towards themes of illusion, consciousness, and imagination. In the visual arts, realism evolved into cubism and expressionism. This movement is paralleled in literature, as illusions and a feeling of flux replaced the realist themes of...

Literature Review Modernism Realism

262

Conveying Racial and Cultural Truths in The Crying of Lot 49

1 page / 2854 words

“There are still the poor, the defeated, the criminal, the desperate, all hanging in there with what must seem a terrible vitality.” Thomas Pynchon, “A Journey into the Mind of Watts” The challenge posed to any reader of “serious” literature is ultimately one of observation,...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

263

Written Information as a Better Means of Communication

4 pages / 1775 words

Before the telephone was invented, people wrote letters to each other to stay in touch. Soldiers would write letters to their wives and families conveying their love and, even today, people write letters to better communicate. Writing is a way of expressing yourself, a way...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

264

Personal and Collective Identity The Crying of Lot 49

1 page / 2277 words

Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher, said, “First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” Defining one’s personal identity may coincide with this ancient Stoic principle, but what is not mentioned is the human transformation that must take...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

265

Analysis of The Methods of Communication in The Crying of Lot 49

1 page / 1288 words

Despite the fact that The Crying of Lot 49 is chock-full of the use of methods of communication, the only time when anything is actually communicated is when a few songs are sung by The Paranoids. Any letters mentioned in the novel are void of...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49

266

Moving Scenes Unveiling in 'Crying of Lot 49'

1 page / 3377 words

Just before the morning rush hour, she got out of a jitney whose ancient driver ended each day in the red, downtown on Howard Street, began to walk toward the Embarcadero. She knew she looked terrible – knuckles black with eye-liner and mascara from where...

Postmodernism Short Story The Crying of Lot 49