788 words | 1 Page
In Richard Dyer’s essay, (now book) White, he states: There are inevitable associations of white with light and therefore safety, and black with dark and therefore danger, and that this explains racism (whereas one might well argue about the safety of the cover of darkness,...
Othello
Stereotypes
William Shakespeare
1200 words | 2 Pages
The thoughtful formation of identity is a significant part of Hailsham life, and as a narrator, Kathy shares her doubts while consciously searching for the aspects of her personality that could answer her queries about her life at Hailsham. Kathy’s search is divided into her...
Never Let Me Go
Personal Identity
1678 words | 3 Pages
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar opens with the concurrent celebrations of Caesar’s defeat of Pompey and the annual fertility festival of Lupercal. The coupling of the two historically separate events each celebrating distinct gender roles dramatically highlights the importance of gender characterization. Rome’s patriarchal society demands a...
Gender Roles
The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
William Shakespeare
1558 words | 3 Pages
In Harriet Jacobs’ historically renowned narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the story of Linda Brent’s struggles as a slave woman help to shed light on the unrealistic standards placed on women during the nineteenth century. As defined by Barbara Welter, the...
Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl
Society
Woman
710 words | 1 Page
Beyond the brutalities that all slaves endured, females suffered the additional anguish of sexual exploitation and the deprivation of motherhood. In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” Harriet Jacobs focuses on racial subjugation but also gives voice to a different kind of captivity...
Incidents in The Life of a Slave Girl
Literature Review
Woman
1496 words | 3 Pages
Rose, in the Midst of Changes In the course of an enduring history of segregation in the United States, there 1950’s was one of the times when African Americans actively fought for equal rights. Many African American men, such as Martin Luther King Jr. who...
African American
Fences
Literature Review
1721 words | 4 Pages
From Hitler to Hussein, the rise and fall of dictators has captivated historians and writers alike for centuries. British novelist George Orwell (1903-1950) was no exception. In his 1946 allegory Animal Farm, Orwell satirized the 1917 Russian Revolution and the subsequent decades of totalitarian Soviet...
Animal Farm
George Orwell
Propaganda
1428 words | 3 Pages
A Streetcar Named Desire is at its surface, an undoubtedly heterosexual play. Allan Grey, its unseen gay character, makes homosexuality a seemingly marginal topic within the play. But a deeper reading of the text suggests the opposite. Tennessee Williams uses heterosexual characters as surrogates to...
A Streetcar Named Desire
Homosexuality
1398 words | 3 Pages
Through a focus upon gender, both Elia Kazan’s film of Tennessee Williams’ original play, A Streetcar Named Desire (Warner Bros, 1951) and Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale (Vintage, 1986) effectively manage to mirror the concerns of both time and place. Despite differing contextual influences,...
A Streetcar Named Desire
Gender
The Handmaid’s Tale
1692 words | 3 Pages
Power is the underlying current that runs through both Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’, a 17th century revenge tragedy, and Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’, a 20th Century modern domestic tragedy. Both plays offer stark representations of power’s tendency to corrupt, a corruption that often...
A Streetcar Named Desire
The Duchess of Malfi
Woman
1580 words | 3 Pages
Throughout scenes 1 and 2 of A Streetcar Named Desire, playwright Tennessee Williams presents Stanley as extremely powerful and authoritative through the use of dialogue as well as stage directions. The audience immediately learns how strong Stanley is in a physical sense; however, we soon...
A Streetcar Named Desire
Character
Masculinity
1119 words | 2 Pages
Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun challenges the stereotype of 1950’s America as a country full of doting, content housewives. The women in this play, Mama, Ruth and Beneatha, represent three generations of black women who, despite their double fronted subordination, continue to dream...
A Raisin in The Sun
Woman
1665 words | 3 Pages
In a hot, 1950s jury room overlooking the financial district of a city, tensions arise as 12 jurors must decide the verdict for a boy accused of murdering his father. In Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men, the equilibrium between the social classes in the courtroom...
12 Angry Men
Film Analysis
Social Class